


Gang Days Are Over

by daisyridley



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Catholicism, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Humor, M/M, Musicals, POV Mac, Pining, mlm/wlw solidarity, post s12e10, the bad stuff isn't prominent, the gang gets better, you know. it's mac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyridley/pseuds/daisyridley
Summary: The Gang is fading away, so Charlie writes a musical to celebrate its golden days; Paddy's becomes what it should have always been; and Mac just wants Dennis back.





	1. Paddy's Pub: Home Of Elderly Gay Couples

**Author's Note:**

> Charlie writes a musical, Paddy's Pub hosts a chess tournament, Mac loses a bar fight but is still a hero

_ When you get older, plainer, saner _

_ Will you remember all the danger _

_ We came from? _

_ Burning like embers, falling, tender _

_ Longing for the days of no surrender _

_ Years ago _

 

LP,  _ Lost on you _

  
  
  


In March, Dennis leaves. The Gang finds it amusing, and they shoot his Range Rover with the RPG, and the next day they go on with their schemes and scams and don’t even realize he’s gone.

April is the cruelest month. It’s when teaming up becomes weird, and most of the times at least one of them doesn’t even take part in their plans, and sometimes it’s two of them, sometimes it’s all of them because they all have different ideas and opinions but they can’t carry on without the others. So they just end up tending bar a lot.

In May, Charlie snaps and complains that everything’s become so damn weird all the time, but they don’t pay attention to him because, as they say, it’s the beginning of summer and they always stall a bit during summer - because it’s hot and humid and it’s not like they can wander around the city carrying a cooler for the beers, so it’s natural that they stay in the bar where there’s AC. Maybe Charlie forgot about this and that’s the reason everything feels so goddamn weird.

Summer comes grasping oxygen and water out of their bodies and leaving them panting, dehydrated, and tired. They’re always so angry, and they do nothing.

Mac doesn’t remember having ever been so tired, even though he still goes to the gym and is still as ripped as usual. He finds out that heat and loneliness can do unbelievable things to a man’s strength. 

They go to the aquatic park like they did a year ago, partly because they need the pool and partly because that day none of them stayed with Dennis, and they have to tell themselves that they’ve always been able to have fun without him. But it was different, then: not spending the day with him was a choice. As much as they’re having fun, it’s impossible to forget about him when his absence is so goddamn present.

Fall doesn’t take away any of their weariness. They pretend they’re still the same, but the burden of forty years is suddenly weighing on their bones. None of them will say it, because talking about it would be admitting defeat, but Charlie was right back in May. Things are different.

They never spent any time trying to understand what exactly “the Gang” was, but whatever that was it seems to be gone now.

Mac refuses to spend even his private thoughts on this matter. He does think a lot about Dennis, though. In a rare, sudden flash of insight he realizes that for his entire life he’s been trying to fill a gaping hole inside him, and he was almost there, he was about to do it once and for all and completely, until Dennis tore it open and left.

If he can’t fill the hole, he can still fill his spare time in a thousand different ways to forget that Dennis is gone.

He tends bar a lot, these days, and he also gets a lot more drunk.

He watches  _ Predator _ a million times, but even his favorite movies aren’t fun anymore now that Dennis isn’t there to watch them with him - in fact, they get kind of boring after you’ve memorized every line and you’ve understood everything that goes on with the plot. So he just resorts to binge-watching tv shows, usually those comedies about people with boring jobs. For some time he believes that  _ The Office _ is an actual documentary and tries to get a crew to film the Gang and Paddy’s, but then he remembers that the reason why he’s watching this doc in the first place is that nothing happens at the bar anymore.

He and Charlie watch a lot of musicals together. Mac has done some research on gay culture and musicals seem to be a big part of it, and since Charlie wrote a musical once he decided to drag him along. Often they’re just super depressing or straight or both, but he likes the singing part, which he guesses is the most important part. Charlie is really fond of  _ Cats _ , mostly because it’s about cats with stupid names. Mac likes it too, right until the song that goes, “ _ It’s so easy to leave me / all alone with my memory / of my days in the sun _ .” He hates that song.

He goes to church more, and whenever they sing there’s always this old lady sitting two rows in front of him who does the second voice creating a beautiful canon choir, so he’s started adding a third voice and it’s really cool; it reminds him of when the Gang used to sing a cappella. The old lady always smile at him at the end of mass, and he wonders if she used to be in an a cappella group, too.

He’s figured out that God must be okay with him being gay because after all the two gay priests on that cruise never risked drowning like he did. Actually, he visited them a couple of times and they have him a nice pamphlet about love and all that package. So now he knows that it’s okay that he loves men and God still loves him.

Dennis considered himself a god but he didn’t love Mac back and that’s a big difference with the real God right there. Plus, the real one is still with him.

He hangs out with Dee a lot because somehow it makes him feel closer to Dennis, and he suspects that if he’s clinging to her because she’s Dennis’ twin then she’s clinging to him because he’s his blood brother. Most of the times they just end up surrounded by empty bottles, pretending not to stare at each other with the corner of their eyes, trying to see if they can find Dennis somewhere in each other and if they can get a piece of him back. It doesn’t really work but every time it seems worth a try. Then they lie down on the cold floor and they look at the ceiling, and Mac feels like crying and he wonders where all the fun has gone. Sometimes (just sometimes, because he doesn’t like thinking about it) he wonders where all the fun  _ will go _ .

He doesn’t think they will ever go back to the way they were, and it’s more and more obvious with every passing day.

He never thought about the future, but it seems that the future arrived when Dennis left to be someone else, and it’s difficult not to think about it when they’re on a sinking ship. Again.

He planned something long-term once, only once, and back then he really believed it would work out perfectly and he felt so certain and hopeful about the future, because he’d just come out, he was peaking, going at a thousand miles per hour, having the time of his life being gay and being in love and just waiting for the right moment to look at his best friend in the eyes and finally kiss him. When he was choosing the new furniture for the apartment it was so easy to imagine a future with him, together until death do us part. And for  _ once _ in his life he actually tried to go after that dream.

It didn’t work out, obviously. It just left him sleeping alone in a bedroom that isn’t even his.

At night, he keeps his eyes shut and shifts restlessly between Dennis’ sheets until sleep eventually saves him for a few hours. He passes the time thinking about Dennis coming back to his bed - which would be  _ their _ bed if everything had gone according to Mac’s plans, and is  _ Mac’s _ bed, really, because he’s the only one who’s touched it in seven months. He fantasizes about slowly waking up in the middle of the night, when it’s still dark outside and the lamplight filters through the blinds, feeling Dennis’ warm breath on his neck as he lies down next to him. “ _ I’m home _ ,” Dennis murmurs in a low voice, laying a hand on Mac’s chest. He can almost feel the warmth of his fingers and Dennis’ curls tickling his chin. He can almost feel them.

He fantasizes about kissing his full lips and stealing his hot breath, about caressing his chest with a gentle touch, about holding him so tight that they both forget what is’t like not to feel the pressure of each other’s bodies.

He fantasizes about having sex with him. He knows how Dennis does it - he’s seen plenty of his porn tapes. They’re enjoyable, sure: they give him a complete view on Dennis’ ass. But they’re not what he wanted when he dreamt about a future with him. Or what he still wants, for all that matters.

At this point, he just wants Dennis back.

He hasn’t talked with him in six months. Well, sure, he  _ has _ talked to him on the phone with everyone else present when they group-called him and everyone pretended to be cheerful. But they never talked with each other, just the two of them, just to say what they’ve been up to or how much they miss each other and wish they were together. Whenever they’d call him all together, Dennis’ fake smile would falter every time he made eye contact with him, and Mac’s breath would catch in his chest. Once, Dennis showed them Brian Jr. in a video chat and they all helped the kid doing a puzzle; it ended with Brian and Charlie being the only ones having fun, and Dennis straight up refusing to meet Mac’s eyes. Nothing happened since that time. He wouldn’t even know how Dennis is doing if Mandy wasn’t in contact with him.

She texted him once to “get a couple of info” (actually, to understand what the hell ever goes on in Dennis’ mind: she’s smart enough to get that nobody knows Dennis more better than Mac), and he pestered her so much that she agreed to keep him updated. Texting her is better than having no damn idea if he’s even alive or not. Plus, the woman is actually pretty nice. Mac would have liked it, if they’d raised the kid all together.

It seems that things will remain in this weird, motionless limbo for a long time, with their entire lives in a balance between a semblance of stability and absolute fucking chaos.

 

“Guys,” Charlie says one day, seven months and two weeks in, “I wrote another musical.”

They all gather around him, excited for once in ages. Dee tosses all of them a bottle of beer before joining them, and for a moment it’s just like the old days: the focus is all on the fun.

“I already got it translated into words,” Charlie says. “It’s a bit more complicated than last time because Mac showed me all these musicals and I thought, I have to up my game, you know. So I really put effort into the metrics and shit, you’ll see.”

“You guys been watching musicals?” Frank asks with a guttural laugh.

“Yeah,” Mac replies, “which by the way you’d know if you’d spend a little more time here.”

“If you want to sit on your asses and sulk all day—”

“Guys!” Charlie shrieks. They shut up.

“Okay, Charlie, what’s this musical about?” Dee asks, making an effort to look interested.

“Well, Dee, I’m happy you asked me that question because I happen to have prepared a little presentation for you. The tv, please.”

They’re all perplexed.

“D’you want us to get the tv?” Mac asks, uncertain.

“No, I’m just saying random words to see if they make up a sentence.”

“Like the typewriting monkeys?”

“I swear to god. Just get me the tv.”

“Can’t you get it yourself?”

“Would you even think of asking a director to be the prop guy? No, you wouldn’t, so go get the damn tv!”

He’s just being lazy, but Dee gets him the tv anyway clearly because she wants a good part in the musical and no songs about falling in love with tiny boys, like last time. And maybe also because they’re all lazy and weary these days, and sometimes they just want to get things done as quickly as possible and go back to their sulking.

Charlie pops in their VHS and bows before taking a seat next to Frank.

The trailer opens with a video of cute kittens that’s been ripped off YouTube, and gets interrupted by something clearly filmed by Charlie - feral cats fighting in a back alley. Charlie’s dramatic voice says, “ _ A world where war… is on the agenda _ .” Then the video does close up on five cats with scars and gnawed ears. “ _ Our heroes fight a fight… that looks… how do you say? Endless _ .” It’s actually pretty cool, but at this point it all degenerates in a burst of quick shots of trees on fire and knights riding horses and cute kittens and blood and Barbra Streisand singing and kittens again with high pitched screams in the background until everything falls silent and the screen goes black and the words “ _ CATS by Charlie Kelly _ ” appear in a hideous orange-to-yellow gradient.

For a couple of seconds, none of them reacts. Mac squeezes his eyes to get those flashing images out of his head, but they’re probably impressed onto his eyelids forever at this point.

“So, what do you think?” Charlie eventually asks.

“You know  _ Cats  _ is already a musical, right?” Dee says.

“Uh, does this say  _ Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Thomas Stearns Eliot,  _ Dee?”

“How do you know so much about it anyway?” Frank asks.

“Oh, Charlie and I have watched this one a lot,” Mac replies.

“That’s gay,” Frank says in a weak attempt at humor, and Mac says,

“Yes,” and he knows Dennis would have laughed.

“If you’re all done discussing what’s gay and what’s not,” Charlie resumes, “could you please pay attention to the scripts I’m handing you now? Thank you.”

The front cover is clearly one of Charlie’s drawings; it depicts five cats with swords. The script is thicker than last time, and a quick browse is enough to see that the song lyrics are in fact more complex. It’s not clear whether Charlie intended it or Artemis felt more literate than usual when she transcribed his garbage.

“ _ Rainbowrat, Spanky, Scaramouch _ …” Dee is reading. “Charlie, what the hell are these names?”

“Oh, so Rainbowrat isn’t okay but Skimbleshanks is?”

“Who the hell even is Skimbleshanks?”

“Skimbleshanks the railway cat!” Charlie replies, almost offended, as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “I bet you wouldn’t even protest about their names if my name was Thomas Stearns instead of Charlie, Dee.”

“That’s because Thomas Stearns Eliot is one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century!”

“Shut up, Deandra, you don’t even know what he wrote,” Frank says, and she finally shuts her mouth. Frank sneers and it’s obvious he doesn’t know what he wrote either.

Mac’s stomach contracts when he realizes that there are five characters, but there’s only four of them now. “Charlie, why are there five cats?” 

“Oh, you know,” Charlie says vaguely, waving a hand. “We’ll get someone to do it. Maybe I’ll ask the Waitress or something.”

“Charlie, the waitress will never do it!” Dee exclaims, and she’s right: there’s no way the waitress will ever be in this musical, even though she may be a little more acquiescent now that Charlie is leaving her in peace. Or maybe not, since he ghosted her when she was trying to get pregnant with his child.

“Then Artemis will do it; I haven’t decided yet. We’ll find someone, guys, it’s not a problem, I haven't even written Spanky’s solo yet.”

“Oh, we could ask Cricket!” Mac proposes. Cricket would be a cheap idea to fill in the void that shouldn’t even be empty in the first place, if things were as they’ve always been.

“Are you crazy, dude? I won’t let Cricket ruin months of work and emotional labor!”

“Okay, then Artemis will do it,” Mac decides.

“Great. Now that we’ve settled this, can we move on? Please?”

“Wait a second, Charlie,” Frank says, “You’ve got to tell us who you’re trying to get at with this.”

“Yeah, don’t tell us the same bullshit as last time,” Dee says. “We all know how that ended.” She snickers remembering that disastrous proposal that totally ruined the night’s mood. Mac pictures himself descending from the ceiling, singing at the top of his lungs, then spotting Dennis in the audience and falling on one knee for him.

He has to remind himself that it would be totally gross.

“Oh, no,” Charlie says.

“What?”

“I said no, this time I definitely had a second motive.”

“And what is it?”

“I wanted to commemorate the Gang.”

They all fall silent. All movements cease.

“What do you mean?” Dee asks after a second with a little laugh.

They don’t talk about it. They never once mentioned that at this point they’re scheming at best once a month and laughing just as often, but not as genuinely, and Frank is always absent and the rest of them are drunker and tired.

God, they’re so tired.

“Well, we all know the Gang is basically falling apart, right?” Charlie says, not even considering that maybe there’s a reason why they don’t acknowledge this, ever. “So I thought, we have to go down in a blaze of glory, man. Also, I still haven’t written the ending of the play which is the part where we actually go down but I figured it’ll take us long enough to memorize the first act that I’ll have time to write the rest.”

“So you’re handing us an unfinished musical about our friendship dying when you still don’t know how it’s going to end?” Mac clarifies.

Charlie chuckles. “No, I know how it’s going to end.” Only after a pause does he rebut the other thing Mac said: “And our friendship isn’t  _ dying _ , dude. You’ll see; it’s all in the musical.”

But his words don’t stick, because all they can think of is the Gang falling apart and going down in a blaze of glory. Mac doesn’t know who he’ll be when the fireworks extinguish, and he realizes that maybe Dennis isn’t the cause of this but a symptom: he saw the Gang going down and decided to get away, build another life for himself before it fell apart and stripped him of everything again like that time they missed the boat.

Charlie wants to explain the plot, but before he can Frank receives a phone call and has to run away. The guy had a life before the Gang and will have a life after it, even though it will be much shittier because he’s become a much, much shittier person. Or maybe he’s always been bad, and he just stopped caring about it. Charlie protests when he goes away, and Mac thinks that at least they’re still sleeping on the same bed.

Mac, Charlie and Dee decide to postpone the meeting to the next day, and Mac and Dee have to promise not to read the script before then. She glances at him when Charlie isn’t looking, and he nods. Camaraderie with Dee feels weird, but again: twin and blood brother.

They tend bar for the rest of the day.

Dee serves a group of regulars who’ve started, for some unfathomable reason, to come there and play chess. Paddy’s even organized a tournament, once, and Frank tried to put a rum ham up for first prize, but then one of the guys offered a Celine Dion CD instead and they all preferred that. This led to people calling it the CDCD and to some participants thinking it was a ticket for an AC/DC concert, but in the end there was little to no fighting about this perceived scam and a lot of people showed up for the tournament; they stayed at the bar until an ungodly hour, and at the end they crowned the winner and had this weird chess ritual where the guy checkmated his adversary by pushing him off a table, which really was the most stupid thing ever but they were all drunk on laughing and their brains were fried.

The regular chess crew, as the Gang calls it, is (ironically) made of four guys and a woman - even though she’s nobody’s sister but one of the guys’ wife. Another two of them are a couple, been married for fifteen years, and they’re constantly glued to each other, peaking at the chess board from the other’s shoulder instead of looking at it like normal people, and planting kisses on each other’s faces when they make a smart move. Then they get overly enthusiastic when they play against each other and start talking about crushing each other’s dreams and stuff. They’re sweet, and they break Mac’s heart all the time.

Today the crew is playing in a corner, and Mac tries not to pay them too much attention. While Dee serves them, he gets a beer, and then he turns on the tv they put on the wall and he watches an episode of  _ Gilmore girls _ . 

At one point, however, he glances around and sees another patron make a grimace in their direction. Mac puts down his beer, scrolls his shoulder, squares his posture and immediately moves to face him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Nothing,” he replies. He looks at the chess crew once more, sneers, shakes his head and finally meets Mac’s eyes with an ingenuous face.

Mac jumps over the counter and gets real close to him, so close that his muscles almost brush the guy’s chest.

“Where you laughing at them, dude?”

“The fuck?” The guy laughs.

“We don’t want people like you, here.” Oh, how the tables have turned. Not too long ago he would have been in the man’s position. Who knows, maybe the guy is like old Mac; he makes amends: “Unless you want us to, like, help you explore your gay side without judgement.”

“Fucking hell,” the man says. He puts his glass or beer down on the counter and leaves, his eyes out of their orbits.

Mac turns to the chess crew to check on them and sees that they’re all staring at him with astonished faces, so he gives them a big thumbs up and they all give him big smiles in return.

“Get a beer, it’s on us!” one of them says, impressed.

When he turns around he sees Dee’s face, rightly shocked at how badass he’s been.

He gets his well-deserved beer, feeling slightly better than usual.

The rest of the day goes by without major incidents. Dee has that dumb focused expression on her face she always has when the lightbulb above her head desperately tries to turn itself on, and at one point she runs to Charlie and they confabulate for a good thirty minutes, and then Charlie finds one of his cats stuck in the vents and they all try to get it out.

That night, after they’ve closed the bar, Mac shows up at Dee’s apartment with Charlie’s script in one hand and takeaway pizza in the other. She grins when she opens the door and sees what he’s brought, and she lets him in.

“Do you have something to drink?” he asks, flopping down on her sofa.

“Sure, who do you think I am?”

She has bad red wine, but it’ll do. They sit on the floor in front of each other, take the first slice of pizza from the carton, pour wine in colored plastic glasses.

“You know he’ll kill us if he finds out we’ve read this, right?”

“We just don’t have to tell him, Dee, it’s not that difficult.”

It’s not that they can’t wait, it’s that they have to know what horrors are waiting for them this time.

They begin. Mac keeps his folder closed, choosing to listen to Dee read instead.

Dee clears her voice. “ _ CATS by Charlie Kelly. Characters: Stinky (cat); Rainbowrat (cat); Spanky (cat); Totti (cat); Scaramouch (cat) _ .”

She stops, looks at him dead in the eyes, and he raises his hands.

“I don’t know either, Dee. Although I can say that the characters in the real  _ Cats _ have names that are just as weird.”

“Who do you think is who?”

“Well, Stinky is Charlie because there’s no way he didn’t put himself first,” he rationalizes.

“And Spanky must be Dennis because Charlie said he still hasn’t written his song.”

His stomach clenches. “Mhm.”

“Oh, come on, you know it’s him!”

“Just go on, Dee!”

She sighs, but she complies. “ _ Back alley, one hour before dawn.  _ How are we even going to show this on stage? There’s no way we can make it clear it’s one hour before dawn.  _ First song: Just another day, by Charlie Kelly, performed by Stinky (cat) _ .”

“Make up a tune as you go,” Mac suggests, and she smiles.

Sometimes she’s not that bad.

 

_ Just another day _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by Stinky (cat) _

 

_ Just another day _

_ in the field of war _

_ and sometimes I feel like _

_ it will never end. _

_ But they need us, _

_ you know they’d be lost _

_ without our strength. _

_ And after all _

_ is it that bad? _

_ To do right what you’re best at doing _

_ with your friends. _

 

Dee looks like she doesn’t want to go on, and for once Mac gets how she feels. Charlie did say this was a celebration of the Gang and everything, but they didn’t think it would be so nostalgic. Mac needs a drink. He chugs down his entire glass of wine and pours himself another one.

Dee coughs and resumes her professional face.

 

_ And you are the best friends _

_ a cat would ever need. _

_ You make me feel like it’s worth it _

_ to go on with this fight. _

_ There’s a whole army _

_ that wants to arm our cat pack _

_ but with the help of my friends _

_ I will drive them away. _

 

“He got good,” Mac manages to comment.

“Yeah, these lyrics actually make sense this time!”

“So...” he prompts her.

She glances at the rest of the page, looking a little constipated. “I don’t think I can keep reading this.”

“I’m glad you brought that up, because I don’t think I can either.”

“Want to watch  _ Notting Hill _ ?”

He does. They end up trashfaced and breaking their backs lying on the floor, singing Charlie’s stupid song on different tunes from pop songs. Mac wonders what the old lady from church would say if she saw him now.

“Dee?” he calls at one point. He knows she can hear him, but he can’t see her so he has to make sure she’s still awake.

“I’m here, asshole.”

“D’you hear from Dennis?”

Her body shifts beside him. He feels her get closer. “Yeah, earlier.”

“I don’t get why he’d call you and not me.”

He sounds like a teenager, but he didn’t get to say this kind of stuff when he was sixteen because he was too busy running after girls he didn’t even like, so he sure as hell is going to be all whiny now.

“He calls  _ me _ because I’m his twin sister!”

“And I’m his blood brother!” he retorts.

“Stop saying you’re his brother when your greatest aspiration is to bang him!”

“My greatest aspiration isn’t to  _ bang _ him, Dee,” he replies, offended. “I can’t believe you, a woman, would cheapen this.”

“And what is it, then?” she asks, skeptical.

“To make sweet, passionate love to him, of course.”

She makes throwing up noises and it’s almost funny to joke about it because for a moment he can pretend he’s just saying this to make Dee sick and not because he’s drunk and it’s true and he misses Dennis so much.

That night, he sleeps on Dee’s couch. In the morning he hears her leave early and he wonders when she started handling alcohol better than him. If he looks around the apartment it almost feels like last year, when he lived here with Dennis and Dee and they all slept together on that huge bed with Old black man, except now Old black man is gone and Dennis is gone and for the first time in his life Mac feels old too. He feels closer to the old guy and the old gay couple who play chess at Paddy’s than the party boys at the Rainbow down the street, even though he’s still young and buff as fuck, he looks good in a tank top and his hair is all there. But he doesn’t have the energy he used to have when Dennis was here.

Then maybe all that energy was mostly just anger. He thinks about Valentine’s day, when he tried to make the others open up emotionally and he was so worried about Dennis’ gift and his heart filled with joy when Dennis said it was perfect, and he knows that he softened up even before Dennis went away.

Mac got better. Dennis’ departure just made his life worse.

He sulks around Dee’s apartment for a while. When he manages to get up from the sofa, he eats a huge bowl of Cocoa Puffs and watches the new  _ Power Rangers _ movie on tv. He takes a look at Dee’s browsing history to have a laugh and sees that she’s searched for gay bars in Philly, which is surprising but it’s not like it’ll be a loss for him if she goes around and kiss women. Dee has also watched an unbelievable amount of SNL sketches on YouTube, but there’s nothing interesting beside that. She’s boring, so he shouldn’t have expected anything more better.

He goes to the bar, and Charlie and Dee squeal when they see him and they all chant “Mac is in the house” a couple of times. He loves this part and for a moment he doesn’t even wonder why they’re so excited to see him.

“D’you know when Frank is dropping by?” Charlie asks.

“No, how would I know?”

Charlie turns to Dee. “We’ve got to wait for him, I don’t want to explain this twice,” he says, and she nods.

“Explain what? You guys have a scheme?”

“Well, if we told you now then we’d have to explain it twice because then we’d have to tell Frank when he gets here so you’ll have to wait to find out.”

He’s eager to hear what they’re planning, but Charlie and Dee escape in the office giggling like kids - or the way they all used to laugh when they felt like this plan was  _ the one _ . Since yesterday, they’ve all been weirdly fervent. First Charlie told them about the musical, then Mac kicked out that asshole, and now Dee and Charlie are scheming. For the first time in months, they’re buzzing.

Mac spots the chess crew in a corner and waves at them, and they sign at him to reach them. They ask him how he’s doing and for once he can truthfully say he’s good. They always check on him because he’s gay and apparently gay people care about each other, and also because they think Dennis was his boyfriend who took a break from their relationship and they feel sorry for him. He doesn’t mind, because he likes this solidarity thing.

“We were thinking about organizing another chess tournament,” one of the chess guys says. “Get some people, put on some music. Like last time.”

“That would be awesome, dude! I could put that  _ Game of Thrones _ box set Dennis bought and never watched up for first prize.”

They’re taken aback. “But, Mac, what if he wants it back one day?”

“Oh, no, he doesn’t want it back.”

“We were thinking about a set of Phil Collins CDs, anyway.”

“Oh. Okay.” It’s fine, even though he really doesn’t understand what is up with chess players and these singers. “We could put up a couple of flyers and you could post about it on Facebook for your friends.”

“Of course,” they say, as polite as ever. “Oh, your friend just arrived.”

Frank’s loud entrances are almost impossible to miss, and even Charlie and Dee peep from the office as soon as they hear him come in. They make Mac and Frank sit on stools and they bring out the tv, again. They stand there with conspiratorial smiles as they hit play and Jackie Denardo appears on the screen, except her voice has been replaced by the song “ _ It’s Raining Men _ .”

They sit through all the five minutes of the song, and then Charlie hits pause and tells Dee that nobody would get why they put “ _ It’s Raining Men _ ” in the video and Dee replies that this introduction doesn’t make sense anyway.

“What the hell?” Frank says, and it’s the sanest thing he’s ever uttered.

“It’s a gay anthem,” Dee explains.

“Yeah, Dee and I had an idea.”

“ _ I _ had an idea, Charlie.”

They have a brief staring contest to decide who wins the argument, after which Charlie says, “Okay, I’ll give you that. Dee had an idea and she told me and we expanded it together.”

“And what is it?” Frank asks, irritated.

Charlie clasps his hands. “Calm down, man, calm down, first things first. Now, what are the only two stable,  _ durable _ features in our lives? The only two things that make us feel like there’s something permanent in this world?”

Mac ponders the question. “The… the Gang and the bar?”

“Very well, my friend, very well,” Charlie says. “The Gang and the bar are, in fact, the only two things that have ever kept us from drifting into a sea of nothingness and despair. Now, we always thought they were indestructible, right? We thought, whatever happens we’ll always have the Gang and the bar. And then what happened? The Gang flaked off, leaving us with only the bar keeping us together as a group and also, like, keeping us together as people.”

“So,” Dee intervenes, “we can’t risk losing the bar, right?”

“But we’ve never risked it!” Frank says.

“Are you crazy, dude? We’ve risked it like once a week for fifteen years!”

“Yeah, and we never lost it once! Why are you so afraid all of a sudden?”

“Because we thought the Gang was safe, Frank, and then Dennis left us and it all fell apart, so listen to Dee’s idea for once!”

Dee, looking positively surprised, smiles at Charlie and resumed her speech. “Yesterday I thought of the perfect way to ensure a steady clientele and keep the bar safe. You can thank me any time.”

“And this way is…? Because we already tried to  _ ensure a steady clientele  _ and it ended up with us serving minors so I think we are entitled to feel a little skeptical about this.”

“Oh, no, dude,” Charlie says, “It’s nothing of that sort.”

Dee tells them that she had the idea when she saw Mac chase away that patron because he was looking at the chess crew with scorn, and the guys were so happy about it that they bought him a drink.

“Where are you getting at?”

“We wouldn’t have to change anything, for once,” she says. “We’d just have to advertise Paddy’s as, like, a place where gay couples can come and won’t be laughed at!”

She’s clearly pleased with the idea, and Mac has to admit that it’s not bad at all. 

“You mean like a safe space?” he asks.

“You’re the one who knows the terms, dude, we’re just providing the general idea,” Charlie says. “I like  _ safe space _ , though.”

Mac thinks about that day, more than a decade ago, when he would’ve had fun if he’d just let himself enjoy the moment. He remembers Dennis, in that tank top that showed off his pecs; drunk, eyes glistening as he patiently explained over and over again how to eat that slice of lime, until it wasn’t even about the lime anymore; it was about laughing and hanging from each other’s lips and staying cocooned inside that joke forever. It went on and on and on and Mac never wanted to come out of it.

It’s memories like this that make him feel old.

“So, we’re keeping it chill,” he tries to clarify. “Not like last time when we went all the way and pretended to be all gay and stuff.”

“Mac, you are gay. Or are we back at that phase when—”

“No,” he interrupts, “no, I am, but I don’t want to open another bar like the Rainbow. It was too messy and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“The chess guys don’t want to do it either, if they’re always here,” Dee points out.

“I think it could work,” Frank says. “Charlie, you on board with all of this?”

“Yeah, man, it’s not like we’re actually doing anything, you know it always goes wrong when we try to change what we do here at the bar because we always go back to our way and it all goes to shit. So this would be, like, advertisement, you know?”

“But what about your musical?” Frank asks.

“Oh, well, I was thinking that maybe we could do this gay scheme first so I’d have time to finish writing  _ Cats _ and then when we’re well-established we could, like, go back to the musical and do that. Artemis still hasn’t booked the theatre so there’s no problem.”

“Then we’re doing this.”

It’s been a while since they were all in favor of something. Actually, they’ve probably never been all in favor of something, especially when Dee was the one proposing it. But it looks like the Gang still has a couple of aces up the sleeve to go down in a blaze of glory.

At this point, they need to plan a marketing strategy. Someone proposes a billboard, but they already did that and it didn’t go well; showing up on tv sorted the same result; in fact, a lot of other ideas have already been done and went bad. 

They can’t fail, this time. They’ve been much more at risk in many occasions, but they felt invincible back then. They just feel defeated now.

For the first time in their lives they do the math, and they quickly realize that their schemes always failed because they ended up overdoing things.

Mac makes up a solution. He tells the others to wait and runs outside to equip himself with blank sheets, pens, pencils, a printer, duct tape, and two boards. The others see him burst in the bar and bolt to the office with two enormous plastic bags, and they get another beer.

He comes out a while later with the boards. On one of them he has attached a piece of paper that says, “ _ REASONABLE IDEAS _ ,” while on the other he’s written “ _ GREAT IDEAS _ .” He gathers his friends around them like that time they put Frank and Dennis on trial, and once he sees them all focused he explains his plan:

“Now we’re going to brainstorm ideas on how to advertise this new gay feature for the bar. If you think you’ve had a  _ great _ idea, you write it on a piece of paper and stick it on the board to your left, the one that says  _ great ideas _ . If you think you’ve had a  _ boring _ idea, you write it down anyway and put it on the  _ reasonable ideas _ board.”

“What, so then we pick the boring stuff?” Frank scowls.

“Yes, Frank,” he replies, unfazed.

Charlie puffs. “I don’t know, man, that doesn’t sound like a good idea. If I have a great idea I want to use it.”

Mac points at the “ _ GREAT IDEAS _ ” caption. Charlie takes a piece of paper, writes “ _ gr8 idaes no dis _ ” with a yellow marker, and sticks it on the board.

“Let me explain,” Mac says. “If we want to go safe, we must go with boring because, as we all know, the most boring things in the world are also the most safer. For example: watching golf; reading; listening to classical music; watching grass grow; making examples list. See? No risk.”

“But nobody likes watching grass grow! Nobody will come if we do boring stuff.”

They’re all protesting and inveighing against him, now, but he came prepared. He’s the guy who convinced these three people that evolution isn’t real, so he can absolutely convince them to be reasonable now that Paddy’s future is on the line.

“That is true,” he admits, “but did you know that eight people  _ out of ten  _ enjoy listening to classical music? And that is because, yes, classical music is boring and thus safe for people’s ears.”

He knows it really could end up with them advertising something as boring as watching paint dry, but he doesn’t want to risk losing the bar, not now and not in a year or ten. Plus, he doesn’t want to screw this particular thing up because he likes the idea of being Paddy’s badass gay bouncer. Mac McDonald, protecting gay couples with his intimidating figure and sweet moves.

Charlie puts “ _ finding Leprechauns / stealing their rainbow / shooting rainbow with RPG downtown for ad _ ” (in a much more illiterate form) under “ _ great ideas _ ”.

“ _ Gay strippers outside pub _ ,” “ _ carnival wagon at next Pride parade _ ” and “ _ 1$ discount for every gay kiss for gay couples _ ” also go in that section, and every time someone complains because “that’s a great idea!” Mac points at the caption and he’s never felt so damn smart.

Mac puts “ _ chess tournament _ ” among the reasonable ideas.

“Oh, we would start advertising then!” Dee proposes. “The chess crew will tell their friends and they will tell their friends and more people will know we’re doing this!”

“That’s a reasonable,” Frank finally agrees.

They also put “ _ flyers _ ” in there, and Dee adds “ _ with photo of happy couple _ .”

An hour later, the “ _ great ideas _ ” board is overflowing but they’ve also managed to collect enough reasonable plans, so they call it a win.

“See?” Dee says. “We can do things properly.”

“I still want to shoot a tv ad, though,” Charlie says, and they all agree. Nobody will ever see it apart from them, but they’ve never really cared about that anyway. If other people got their sense of humor,  _ Lethal weapon 6 _ would have grossed millions at the box office.

Frank leaves to do his business and the rest of them close the bar and move to Charlie’s place to shoot the video. They agree that Mac should be the face of it, since he’s gay and all, but Dee and Charlie insist on writing the script. This leads to Mac freezing in Charlie’s hellhole wearing the tiniest tank top ever and rapping that if you’re gay like him, tired of straights like him, you should come to Paddy’s and drink a beer in peace like him. It lacks originality, but seeing Dee spitting in her fists like an idiot to give him a rapping base makes up for it.

Then Charlie leaves, too, to catch a Leprechaun. Mac and Dee convene that he will never find another man that looks like a Leprechaun so there should be no risk of kidnappings. She asks him if he wants to get back at her apartment and call Dennis together to give him the good news. He declines. Dennis will feel uncomfortable if he’s there, and then he will feel uncomfortable, and it’ll be one more reason why his chest starts clenching at night when he’s trying to picture good things.

He goes home instead. He bought a recipe book and he’s trying to get through some of them, and it’s not bad if he pretends he’s cooking for someone else. Sometimes he thinks he could open a super popular blog called  _ mac and cheese _ , and he’d tell the story of when he couldn’t cook anything else and his followers would laugh with him. Or he could serve food at the bar.

If Dennis ever comes back, he’ll cook something decent for him.

The next day there’s a pipes crisis and they all kind of forget about the safe space, and once that’s solved the mixer explodes all over Dee’s t-shirt and they laugh at her.

Two days later, the chess crew is back and Mac takes the occasion to tell them about their plan, since they’ll be majorly involved.

“We’re thinking of promoting Paddy’s as a safe space for gay couples where, like, we do stuff like the other day when that guy was laughing at you and I sent him away. We want to make it sort of a permanent feature because I’ll be doing that anyway so why not make the most of it?”

“That’s a great idea,” they say. “And also a reasonable one.”

He follows their gaze and sees that he left the two boards in a corner of the room.

“Oh, yeah, we were pitching ideas there.”

“Maybe you could put a rainbow flag behind the counter. Just a little one, to show your support.

He makes a mental note to purchase one and nods. “And we were also thinking about making leaflets and put them outside gay bars and stuff, so we were wondering if you two would like to pose for it.”

The guys are enthusiastic about it, so they set a date and time for the photoshoot. Mac also tells them about the chess tournament and they promise to post about it on all social medias as soon as it’s been organized, so the Gang spends the rest of the day deciding a date, checking their alcohol supplies and doing calculations. 

Mac buys a small rainbow flag to put on the counter, and since he’s there he gets a bigger one to use at the inauguration and takes it home.

That night, he sits on the couch with the flag as a blanket and watches  _ Pacific Rim _ . It’s a super complicated movie where people mind-meld inside robots to understand each other perfectly and defeat aliens, and Mac thinks that he and Dennis would never be able to do that because even if they were compatible Dennis would never want anyone in his brain. He’s not sure he would want Dennis in his brain, either.

He thinks that all things balanced he’s getting good at not pining after him every second of his life like he did in April.

Before the movie ends, his phone rings. It’s Mandy, who asks him how he’s going and says she’s going well and Brian Jr. too.

“What about Dennis?” he asks, just a little worried.

“I think he’s alright, but he told me he spoke to one of you a couple of days ago and since then he’s been acting a little weird. Did something happen?”

He relaxed. “We want to promote the bar as a safe space for gay couples,” he explains, “because I kicked a homophobe out of it the other day and everyone thought I was great.”

“That’s awesome!” she says, and she actually sounds excited about it. “I’m surprised Dennis took it that way, to be honest. He should be happy for you guys.”

Dennis’ reaction makes him bitter. “Maybe it’s because it’s the first actually good idea we’ve ever had and he can’t take the credit for it.”

She laughs. “Probably. Also, he told me he’s looking for a bigger apartment. I have no idea why, he already has plenty of space for him and Brian when he’s there and that place is not half bad but, you know. He just told me to wait and see.”

“Is he seeing someone?” Mac asks. Now, normally Dennis seeing someone wouldn’t alarm him because he’s always taking people home left and right, but he’s never serious enough with them to change his  _ entire _ living arrangement around them, not that time he got married and kicked Mac out of the apartment.

“Oh, no, I don’t think he’s been on any dates since he got here. He’s always either working or with Brian, so I guess we’ll really have to wait and see what he has in mind.”

He’s not happy with this plan, but there’s nothing he can do: she has the upper hand as long as he’s relying on her completely for every scrap of information. If she doesn’t want to find out more, he won’t find out more either.

The next day is the day of the Photoshoot Debate. They all agreed when it came to choosing to take a picture of a gay couple, but they never once discussed the specifics and now they’re paying the price.

The poor chess guys stand far apart as the matter gets discussed.

It all begins when Dee resolutely says,

“I was thinking that we could make them kiss as I stand behind them with a glass of beer and do a thumbs up.”

“Dee, that’s awful,” Mac replies.

“What? It’s a great idea!”

For the hundredth time in two days, Mac points at the boards in the corner.

“Oh, that’s bullshit!” she protests. “We can’t dump every great idea just because you say so!”

“Yes, we can!”

“Deandra, your idea sucks,” Frank concludes.

“Yeah, I’d rather go under than have you in our flyers.”

“Okay, then you can stand behind them with a beer!”

“I told you, Dee, we don’t want another Rainbow! Does anyone else have ideas?” Mac asks, exasperated.

“How about we, like, all dress up as soldiers and we wave the rainbow flag, and then at the bottom of the picture we put a text that says like  _ you’re safe here _ ?”

“But we’re not soldiers!” Dee objects. “It sounds like you’re saying that gay people are safe in the army!”

They’re all sizing each other up with their arms crossed, trying to predict who will be the one to come up with the next idiocy.

“Okay, well,” Charlie says, “we just have to add  _ Paddy’s pub _ somewhere and they’ll know we’re a bar and not the army!”

“If I may,” a voice says.

The Gang turns to the chess couple. The two men have stepped forward, and they look awkward as hell at hearing them argue.

“Do you have a way to solve this?”

“Actually, yes. I used to work in advertisement. I even met Bill Bernbach.”

“You realize that we have absolutely no idea who that is, right?”

“Yes,” the man says. “I just meant to say that I was a professional so maybe I can help you with this given that you’re in… deep waters. I have a, uh, reasonable idea if you want to hear it.”

His proposal isn’t the best, but after all, he met Bill Bernbach, so he must know what he’s doing.

The Gang lets the couple sit at the counter and old hands over it. Charlie goes at the other side of the room and takes a picture of them from behind, so that their joined hands are right in the middle of it.

“You just have to add the name and address of the bar, and you’re done,” Bill Bernbach guy says.

“Sounds fine to me,” Frank says.

“Thank you, I guess,” Dee says.

“Then next week, when we have the tournament, you stick these on the walls for people to see. It’ll work out just fine, just wait and see.”

“Why are you helping us anyway?” Frank asks.

“Because you let us and our friends come here and order just one beer and sit here playing chess all day without telling us to get lost,” one of them answers.

“Moreover,” the other one adds, “we’re invested in this young man’s wellbeing. And his love story. Heard from your boyfriend?” He clasps Mac’s shoulder, and Mac doesn’t correct him.

“Oh my god, guys, we did it!” Dee exclaims. “We’re like that stupid ass bar that won our award because people went there to know if those bartenders would end up together!”

“Oh my god, we can win that award now!”

“Yeah, no, I still don’t think we can.”

“I wonder if those two got together,” Frank says.

Mac scratches his chin. “You know, I think the guy was a little too self-absorbed. I’m not sure I wanted them together.”

“Want to go and see what happened?” Frank asks, and Mac happily follows him outside leaving Charlie and Dee with the camera.

“You guys coming?” he asks when he’s at the door.

Sensing a threat, Charlie tells her that he’d better follow them to make sure nothing bad happens and, “Dee, you make the flyers while we’re there.”

“What? No, I won’t make your flyers!”

“Well, someone’s got to do it, and you’re the only one left here and you can’t ask our models to do it, so… don’t screw up.”

She stomps her feet, but she can’t argue with his flawless logic.

Charlie runs outside and catches up with the others.

“Oh, you dumped the work on her,” Frank cheerfully says.

“Yeah, I can’t use Photoshop.”

The rival bar is a lot less crowded now that they hype has worn off and it’s not trying to win awards left and right. They find out, with great dismay, that the self-absorbed guy doesn’t even work there anymore. This is beyond ridiculous after all that happened and it makes Mac go off in a rant for about fifteen minutes with Charlie backing him up until they’re gently asked to leave the place and Frank runs off with them stealing all their drinks on his way out.

Less than forty-five minutes since they left the bar, they’re back. Dee is still at the computer trying to rotate a text in Comic Sans that says “ _ best beer in Pennsylvania _ .”

A cacophony of insults and swear words clogs the office and there they are, arguing again, because it’s absurd to say that they have the best beer in Pennsylvania when ever bar in the entire east coast serves the same kind of beer, and also telling people that you have the best beer actually sounds like a good idea, and what have they been saying about good ideas? They’re bad. This is the rule, now. Every time they have a good idea they keep it out of business so they don’t go under like the Gang, exhausted, did. Now it’s time to treat Paddy’s pub like a goddamned  _ newborn _ . What do newborns like? Everything except cool things. And that’s how they don’t die. They don’t go bungee-jumping, they don’t attach fireworks to their own bodies, they don’t do stand-up comedy, they don’t invite strippers to their house. At best, they play newborns in sit-coms. And they all know that  _ Old Lady House _ was one of the best schemes they ever pulled off.

After that business all died out, Dennis told Mac that he’d secretly implanted five cameras at the bar and filmed everything for a week until three of them got destroyed at once in an annoying incident. Mac still has footage of Charlie singing a song from  _ Madagascar _ , alone at the bar at 3am.

Eventually, Dee agrees to just put the name and address as previously decided and they all watch her work while sipping their stolen drinks. It almost feels like the old days.

Two weekends later, they host the tournament. The most surprising part is that a lot of people actually come to an unknown bar in a dangerous street of south Philly just to play a boring board game with other sixty year olds. The chess crew’s internet influence must be incredible. By 4pm the bar is packed with people laughing and placing boards and pieces in the boots. Frank is trying to get everyone’s attention and get them to write their name down to enter the tournament.

“We got twenty-seven players and we’ve got to reach thirty-two if we don’t want this to get real messy with the math later so if you still have neurons in your head just write your name on this goddamn form!”

A couple more people join, a few others are trying to convince their partners to play.

Dee and Mac are standing in a corner, monitoring the room. They take mental note of everyone who’s serving themselves beer.

Without looking at him, Dee tells Mac, “You should play.”

“Are you crazy? I’ve never played chess once in my entire life! Why should I play?”

“Two more!” Frank yells.

“I know,” Dee whispers, “but it would be good advertising for the bar if you won at least one match!”

“Dee,  _ I can’t play _ , and how am I supposed to win against people who are good enough to sign up for a  _ chess tournament _ ?”

She grins. “Remember the dance-off?”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s— it makes sense!”

“Thirty-one!”

“Hey, Frank! I’ll do it!”

“Then come here and write your name down like everyone else!” Frank scowls, giving Mac doubts on whether he remembers his full name or not.

“Okay, no more!” Frank shouts once Mac is done. “Deandra, pair these names up for the first match and write them on the board. Charlie! We’re ready to go.”

Charlie, who dressed up nicely for the evening with a red jacket, picks up the microphone and screams into it.

It’s not exactly an orthodox method to get people’s attention, but it works: the entire bar falls silent and everyone, glasses in mid-air, turns to look at him in bewilderment.

“Hello and thank you for joining us today at Paddy’s pub, home of the original Kitten mittens—”

“And LGBT-friendly space!” Mac adds.

“And LGBT-friendly space, yes, thank you Mac. We’re not a chess club, but if you come here to play chess and you buy our beer we won’t send you away!”

People laugh.

“Alright, well, I’m Charlie Kelly, I’ll be your host tonight. If you ever need anything my colleagues Frank, Mac and Dee will be at your disposition, you can see them raising their hands, Frank raise your hand. A special thanks goes to our organizers Drew, Maurice, Francis, Carl and Eileen, please give it up for them! Now, I don’t know how these things usually work but we had to put down a couple of rules because we were told that a chess game can last like forever but we have to elect a winner by the end of the night so please, everyone, pay attention. Every round will have a hour and a half limit, so if you’re not done by that time, the person with more pieces still in place wins. Now please check the board behind me to see who you’ll be facing for the first round, and I wish you all a good game! Once you’re all paired up I’ll start the timer, and you’ll find me at table eleven if you need me.”

People clap and Charlie bows, and he actually did a decent job presenting this thing. Suddenly everyone is moving through the tables to find their own, each player with supporters at their heels. It takes five more minutes before everyone has managed to sit down. 

Everybody counts down from ten, and then Charlie starts the timer and joins Dee at Mac’s table to cheer for him.

Mac’s opponent is a bulky guy in his fifties who looks like he belongs to a Harley Davidson convention instead of a late afternoon chess tournament.

Dee whispers in Charlie’s ear, “I put laxatives in his drink,” and Charlie nods solemnly. Not it’s just a matter of stalling the game long enough for it to kick in.

Mac is doing quite a great job, especially because he doesn’t even know who should move first so he’s just hoping the guy will either do something or tell him what to do.

About a minute later, the man asks, “Are you going to move your piece?”

“What?”

“The clock is running. Just start, for fuck’s sake, how many moves are there to make?”

Mac looks at his pieces, then looks at Charlie.

“Just move one in the front row, dude! You can move it two boxes forward.”

He moves. The guy also moves a piece. Mac waits a minute, then moves another. Chess is so boring. He’s already managed to memorize the exact design of all the pieces. The guy takes a sip of his beer and moves another piece. Mac waits for something to happen, and he moves another one.

Two more moves, and his opponent starts grimacing, which means he must be close. 

“So, what brought you here?” Mac amicably asks.

The guy moves a piece. “Friend told me he saw this on Facebook. He couldn’t come but I’m in town one night so I thought why not. Was hoping to face someone more prepared, though. You suck at this.”

Mac is about to jump at his throat, but Charlie restrains him.

“And what do you do?” he asks.

“Truck driver.”

“Knew it,” Dee whispers. “Hey,” she adds in a louder tone, “you don’t look very well. You should have something to drink.”

“Are you going to move?” the guy asks Mac.

“Yes, dude, don’t push me!”

He waits a couple more minutes, then makes his move. As soon as he does, the guy puts his hands on his stomach and with a strangled voice asks where the bathroom is. Dee cheerfully points it to him and he bolds.

As soon as he’d gone, Mac relaxes on his seat.

“Nice. So, what do we do now?”

Charlie takes a look at the board.

“Dude, he was about to checkmate you.”

“ _ He was _ ?”

“Yeah, see here? He was about to move the queen right there, kill your pawn and checkmate you because your king can’t go anywhere out of reach.”

“Holy shit,” Mac says. “Dude, I was just moving my pieces randomly. What do we do if he comes back and wins?”

“We’ll tell him that it’s against the rules to leave the game while the timer is running,” Dee offers. “We’re the judges, we can say what we want.”

“Then why didn’t you just make him leave with an excuse?”

She shrugs. “This seemed easier.”

They all nod because she’s right for once, and turn the chessboard around so that it looks like Mac checkmated the guy in five moves instead of the other way around.

“Wait, does this mean I have to play again now that I’ve won?”

“Yeah, but I think you can just lose the next round now that we’ve proven you’re not an idiot.”

“Now, should we go find Frank and see how he’s doing?”

They all move over to his table and find out that he’s definitely better than Mac, since at least he knows how all the pieces can move, but it’s still no match: his opponent beats him in a little more than forty-five minutes. After that, they wander around the tables making sure nobody’s cheating and nobody’s drinking more than they’re paying for.

When the timer chimes, Charlie once again shrieks into the microphone to make everybody drop their pieces and pay attention. The Gang checks table per table to see who goes on to the next round and Mac writes the winners’ names on the board. There’s a ten minute break, and then the next match begins.

Around 7:30, when they’re down at eight players but most people are still hanging around, someone has the brilliant idea to order pizzas for everyone. 

For an embarrassing five minutes everyone gathers around Dee, who puts her phone on speakers and somehow manages to take everyone’s orders. The boy at the other end of the line sounds like he’s about to pass out once he recaps the full order and realizes it amounts to fifty-one pizzas.

While they eat, Charlie gets on Mac’s shoulders and takes a picture of the crowd with their glasses raised. After that, Dee disappears for a while, and only later that night do they find out that Frank poured his beer on her head when they snapped the pic; her horrified face makes Mac and Charlie wheeze for ten minutes.

By the time the semi-final begins, pretty much everyone is at least tipsy, if not straight up drunk. Mac has never seen a group of fifty-to-seventy year olds so pumped, and definitely never for chess. They sound like they’re cheering for a football match instead of two games of chess and nobody is even remotely surprised when one of the players screams and flips over the board. He loses the game, but he gains a friend in Charlie.

By the time the final rolls up, it’s 11:30pm and nobody shows signs of tiredness. The crowd spontaneously decides to break in half to cheer for one opponent or the other, and they even make theme songs that are just the player’s name repeated over and over at the rhythm of “ _ We Will Rock You _ ” and the piña colada song by Rupert Holmes.

Charlie does a running commentary on the mic for all those who can’t see the board, and it’s a mystery how the two finalists can even focus enough to remember how to play. Dee and Mac and even Frank dive into the roaring crowd holding glasses of beer to their chest not to spill everything out and giving them to anyone who asks, and even though Mac ends up with beer all over his shirt he doesn’t even care because he’s making a shit ton of money in payments and tips and it’s super hot anyway.

When the game ends, everyone is so pumped and hysterical it looks like  _ all of them _ won.

Charlie crowns the winner with a Burger King crown he got at least eleven years ago, and he gives him the Phil Collins CD and a badge he made at the last minute with the drawing of a pawn stuck to it with scotch tape. The crowd resolves into a chant that just goes “Chess! Chess! Chess!” and it’s pretty fun to put your fist in the air and shout with everyone else like you’re anywhere but in a crappy bar with elderly drunk people.

Charlie picks up the mic and joins the chant until it dies out, at which point he opens his arms and smiles like a king and says,

“Thank you all for coming!”

“You!” someone says right behind Mac, voice barely distinguishable under all the noise. The stranger grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around, and Mac finds himself face to face with the truck driver from like eight hours ago. He had completely forgotten about him. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” the guy growls.

“You’re the one who’s got a problem, dude!”

“Now,” Charlie says, “you may have seen these pretty little flyers around the bar. As my friend Mac - he’s right there, hi Mac! - as my friend Mac said before, this is an LGBT-friendly bar.”

“Did you fucking put something in my beer?” the truck driver accuses, making the mistake of taking Mac by the collar of his shirt. Mac makes the only winning move he can think of: he slams his knee into the guy’s crotch. 

“Since Mac kicked a guy who was being homophobic out of the bar…”

“Checkmate, bitch,” Mac says.

The last thing he sees before everything goes black is a fist coming toward his eyes.

He regains sight after what feels like a moment, but the guy is nowhere to be seen and Charlie and Dee are kneeling beside him like Mary and Joseph in the nativity. Frank is standing behind Charlie, and everyone else is in a circle at a respectful three feet from him. It’s literally like the nativity and they’re all looking at him like he’s Jesus Christ reborn.

“Mac?” Charlie shouts in his left ear.

“Lower your voice, dude.”

“I’m whispering! Mac, are you awake, man? What year is this?”

“No, I’m sleeping, Jesus Christ… am I Jesus Christ?”

“I think you have a concussion, man.”

“He definitely has a concussion,” Dee says.

Mac’s ears explode when Frank turns to the crowd and roars, “he’s fine!” and everyone sighs in relief with the volume of a thousand running bisons and starts talking way too loudly.

“What the hell happened?” Mac asks. His head hurts a lot.

“You got knocked out.”

“The timing was amazing! How did you do that?”

“Yeah, man, I was talking about the gay project and you kicking that asshole out to the bar two weeks ago and then this guy punched you and everyone thought it was because you’re gay and there was, like, a riot, man, we thought they were going to lynch him but he ran away.”

“I’ll be surprised if the bar isn’t full by tomorrow night,” Frank says. “If the word goes around, we’re game.”

Mac smiles. “I saved the bar.”

The others exchange a glance.

“Yeah,” they say, condescending. 

“Yeah, you saved the bar. Dee, you’re taking him home.”

“Why me?”

“Because he can’t walk so you have to let him lie on your backseat.”

“He’s going to throw up all over it!”

“Yes he is, Dee. Yes, he is.”

Mac finally manages to get up and stay on his feet, and he sees everyone giving him big smiles. He saved the bar. He’s a savior. He’s  _ the _ savior. He also definitely has a concussion so he’ll spend the next four days in the dark with ice on his black eye, dying of boredom. But it was worth it. He was badass.

Now that the tournament is over and Mac is more-or-less alright, the crowd disperses. People on their way out thank them for the good time and pat Mac lightly on the back for his pride and bravery. He calls Dennis a week and a half later, when he’s finally thinking clearly and doesn’t feel dizzy anymore. His friends still won’t let him into the bar because he went there three days ago and tumbled over every piece of furniture, yelled at a stool for being on the way and then broke out in sobs.

Still, this is the most satisfied he’s ever been in a long time, and he wants to share it with Dennis. Right now it’s not about him or them or their feelings or anything; it’s just that he really wants to tell Dennis about the bar. The thirty seconds it takes him to get his phone and dial Dennis’ number, he’s the most blissful he’s been in  _ years _ . In those thirty seconds, he simply forgets that the last eight months ever even happened.

Only when he hears Dennis’ surprised voice does he remember that it’s the first time he calls him.

“Mac.”

“Hey, Dennis.”

“I, uh. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Although I got a black eye last week and it still hasn’t healed completely. Also a concussion.”

“A concussion?”

“Yeah, guy punched me, black eye, I fell on the floor, concussion. I had the last word, though.”

“Oh, you did? Because Dee told me you fainted after he punched you.”

“Yeah, but now we have a lot more clients. Like, not  _ a lot  _ lot because you know we can’t handle that, but still there are so many new people coming at the bar now.  _ So _ many couples.”

“Congratulations, you’re finally recognizing your limits.” 

“Also, before he punched me in the eye I kicked him in his balls and I said  _ checkmate, bitch _ .”

“That’s pretty funny.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, buddy, it’s pretty funny.”

“I can tell you the rest of the story. Unless Dee already told you. D’you want to hear it?”

“Yeah. I want to hear it.”


	2. Charlie Wrote Another Musical: Cats By Charlie Kelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gang rehearses the musical and celebrates Christmas. Mac does something stupid

_ Oh, those halcyon days and halcyon nights, _

_ before we began to realize that things aren’t right. _

_ And it seems like nothing now will ever change. _

_ And it seems that we’re on our own again. _

 

Enter Shikari _. Hectic _

 

Three weeks pass in relative tranquility, a newly achieved balance that somehow doesn’t feel as strange as it should.

Their regulars are a pretty funny crowd who wastes no occasion to drag the Gang into some board game or to literally drag them to see obscure football matches played by mediocre teams, where the main source of entertainment is their own live commentary. Tending bar is not that bad when they’re actually having fun. It feels less repetitive than it used to.

They still try their hardest not to get bored for even one second of their restless lives but it seems like they’re settling down with very little, these days, and they still manage to be satisfied with that. The chess tournament wasn’t a grand thing but they all made it feel like it was just because they liked doing it, so maybe the key to relaxation was just finding things that keep their nerves in check without having to go at a thousand miles per hour.

Mac still gets drunk, goes to the gym, watches movies, misses Dennis. But at least he talks to Dennis on the phone sometimes - never for too long. He still gets all his information from Mandy, because he and Dennis have always been able to talk about anything as long as it was about nothing.

So it’s Mandy who tells Mac that Dennis moved into a new apartment, that Brian Jr. stays with him during the weekends, that Dennis has a job and doesn't get along with any of his coworkers so he just hangs out with Mandy and her sister. 

Mac tells Dennis that he’s doing just fine; Dennis tells Mac that his job is boring, that his friends there have an awful sense of humor and he doesn’t like them much, that his son loves playing mini-golf even though he can’t really play it because he’s three years old, and no three year old can actually play golf. They never talk about the Gang.

The Gang doesn’t talk about the Gang either. It’s not as difficult as it used to be. It was harder to keep their mouths shut when they were so uncertain about their condition - when a vague sense of dread would drop their stomachs and demand to either be spoken up or swallowed down, and every time they would push and press it down and try to forget about it. But now they’re not living as precariously as they used to, and sometimes they can just not give a shit about their crumbled castle of cards. Most days it’s more like they’re looking at the remains and just deciding to play something else with those cards.

Of course Charlie, being the wild card he’s always been, is still scrutinizing it like an eviscerated frog. One Wednesday morning he bursts in the bar and proudly proclaims,

“I’ve finished the musical!”

“About damn time!” Frank replies.

Mac and Dee heave exasperated sighs.

“Don’t complain, you two,” Frank says. “He stays up all goddamn night with the lights on to write that musical. Doesn’t let me sleep.”

“All night? Charlie, are you even sleeping?” Mac asks, concerned.

“Yeah, all the time, dude. What do you think I’m doing when I’m in the back office?”

“I don’t know, playing Minesweeper? I didn’t think about that!”

“ _ Anyway _ , I finished writing  _ Cats _ , today I’m meeting with Artemis to go over it, and I thought in the meantime we could finally read the part I’ve already given you. You still have those scripts, right?”

Mac, Dee and Frank shoot a quick glance at each other.

“Yeah,” Dee says, careful. “But you know what, Charlie? I would  _ love _ to have another copy because it’s such a great musical and I feel like one copy just isn’t enough.”

“I swear to god, Dee, I told you two things, two things! One, here’s your script, two, don’t read it, and you did both?”

“I didn’t do either! I just have so much faith in your writing skills, Charlie, especially when it comes to the song that I will be singing, and about that matter I would like to go over a couple of details and ground rules with you.”

Charlie exhales and tears his raging eyes off her. When they land on Mac, he takes a step back.

“Anyone else needs another copy?”

“You know damn well we do,” Frank says.

“Yeah but it’s like Dee said, dude! We really want to have to copies of it, to look at it from two different angles, you know. Like, at the same time.”

It’s a poor attempt and it totally fails, but Charlie just closes his eyes for five seconds, breathes deeply and says, “I got this much patience. This much. And you’re already testing it.”

It’s not like Mac actively threw the script in the trash. He would never do that to his best friend’s work, even though it was unfinished and also it made Mac really sad and it would have satisfied him a lot more if he’s just shredded it. But the thing is that it’s been like two months, and everybody knows that any piece of paper disappears after a week under  _ more _ paper. So it’s not really Mac’s fault if he has absolutely no idea where that script is. And he’s pretty sure Frank and Dee actually threw it away, so he’s better than them anyway.

It’s really inconvenient that Charlie has to print them again because he does it in the back office which means he’ll use all the toner and they’ll have to buy more and that shit costs too much for what it’s worth.

When Charlie returns from the office with the freshly-printed copies, they’ve had the decency to father some stools around the keyboard and to warn the patrons that they’ll be making some pretty loud noises in a couple of minutes. None of them looks bothered by this - in fact, they seem to be intrigued in what’s about to happen. Mac is glad that none of them was around when they formed bands and played that terrible music. Specifically Dennis and Charlie’s terrible music.

Charlie hands over the scripts once again, and even though it’s only been two months since last time it feels like years. Then Mac recalls reading the first song with Dee, drunk on her living room floor, and thinks that maybe things haven’t changed much since then.

Charlie sits at the keyboard. “ _ CATS by Charlie Kelly _ ,” he reads. “ _ Characters: Stinky (cat); Rainbowrat (cat); Spanky (cat); Totti (cat); Scaramouch (cat) _ .”

“Okay, so who’s who?” Dee asks.

“Well, here’s what I was picturing: Stinky is Dee—”

“Wait a second,” Dee interrupts, “on one hand I’m flattered that you put me first, but on the other hand why the hell is my cat called Stinky?”

“Because that’s her name, Dee! Don’t question it! I haven’t seen you ask Frank why you’re called Deandra!”

“Okay, fine! Go on.”

“Good. So Rainbowrat is Mac, Totti is Frank, Scaramouch is me.”

He’s left out Spanky because Spanky is Dennis, of course, and maybe Charlie knows it too because otherwise he’d just have said “this is Artemis” and been done with it, or maybe he truly doesn’t know and it wouldn’t be the first time he doesn’t notice the obvious. In any case, once again Dennis’ absence haunts them and it’s like the guy never left. It’s funny how he manages to torment them whether he’s there or not, like their own hideous family member who becomes the annoying family ghost.

“Now, let’s all read song one,” Charlie says. “Just another day, performed by Stinky. Don’t read ahead, Dee; you’re not subtle!”

“But it’s my song!”

“You have to follow the flow, Dee! Like you were watching this on stage, otherwise you won’t get the whole emotion behind it and your performance will be shit!”

“What difference does it make if she reads the first line of her solo?” Mac asks.

“That’s not the point, dude! The point is that I’m the director and I’m giving you instructions and you’re not following them!”

“Why do you even care so much about this?” Frank grunts, slapping the script with the back of his hand.

“Well, excuse me if this is the work of a lifetime! Guys, this is my peak as a storyteller! The Gang has been our life for twenty years, and we peak as a group, and now that we’re in decline it’s my duty to write about our golden days so that maybe there will be something to remember about this whole thing that we lived and then we will peak for real.”

“Charlie, that makes no sense.”

“Because you don’t understand narratives, man, but I do, and that’s why  _ I _ ’m the author and director of the musical of our lives.”

“Alright, we got it,” Dee says, throwing her hands in the air in a sign of defeat. “Can we move on from whatever literary criticism this is and focus on my song?”

“Yes, Dee, thank you. Thank you. So, as you can see in the first song, which you can read now, Stinky is singing about herself and Rainbowrat and Spanky because you three are a group of warrior cats who fight every day against other cats to protect your pack. The war has been going on for ages and it feels kind of pointless and you’re tired of it, but you’re also happy because you get to spend a lot of time together and do something that makes you feel like you’re  _ doing _ something, you feel?”

“Wow, Charlie, that is deep.”

“Told you Mac and I watched a lot of musicals. Okay, so, now I’ll sing it to you so you can… understand, or whatever. I’ve made CDs with all the songs so you can learn yours for next time.”

Charlie sings it on a better tune than the one Dee made up that night, and now the lyrics sound even worse.

 

_ Is it that bad? _

_ To do right what you’re best at doing _

_ with your friends. _

_ And you are the best friends _

_ a cat would ever need. _

_ You make me feel like it’s worth it _

_ to go on with this fight. _

 

“So,” Charlie says, “now Spanky and Rainbowrat come on stage and start arguing. We already have a Rainbowrat but we’re… missing Spanky, so…  _ hey _ !” he yells. He’s learned at the chess tournament that these beer drinking gays are easily attracted by loud sounds - as is probably everybody else in fact. 

At the unexpected scream they all turn to look at him in shock.

“Hey, does anyone want to read a character’s lines?”

“And you’d better give extra tips later,” Frank says, “‘cause you’re listening at this in preview!”

“What’s your musical about?” somebody asks.

“Warrior cats!” Dee answers.

“I’ll do it!” an old woman chimes. She’s sitting at a table with three other women and it looks like they’re all playing  _ Clue _ . “I got eliminated anyway,” she adds, and the others giggle maliciously like only old people can do when they get worked up on board games.

She approaches the gang with frustrating slowness on her weak legs. She’s almost halfway through when she realizes she forgot her reading glasses and goes back to fetch them. The Gang almost falls asleep waiting for her.

“Hey, are you friends with Gladys?” Charlie asks.

“My name is Gladys!” she says, lightning up. “But I don’t know any other Gladys. Well, there was that Gladys from high school. She would always pull my hair and when I cut it short she said I was a lesbian, but I haven’t seen her since. Well, joke’s on her. She never got married and I got a wife.”

“Could be our Gladys,” Charlie says.

When she finally reaches them, she insists on shaking all their hands and doing all the proper presentations.

“So, who am I playing?” she asks once she’s done and she’s put on her lilac glasses. She peeks at Dee’s script, and Dee puts it in the middle between them.

“Spanky. He’s, uh, she’s a cat. In a group of warrior cats,” Charlie says.

“Wonderful! And I can play a boy cat if you want him to be a boy,” she offers.

Charlie shoots a glance at Mac, then quickly looks back at Gladys.

“Cool, yeah,” he mumbles.

 

Stinky:

We are the best!

Spanky:

We are only five cats but we are invincible.

Rainbowrat:

Even though they keep coming. And coming. And coming. And coming. And—

Spanky:

And we keep winning, and winning, and winning!

 

_ What Are We Doing? _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by Rainbowrat (cat) _

 

_ But they keep coming, and coming, and coming, _

_ and scratching my face _

_ a shit ton of times. _

 

_ And I don’t think I can see _

_ what I’m still doing here. _

 

_ And they keep coming, and coming, and coming, _

_ and we’ve heard, what? _

_ Ah, no word of thanks. _

 

_ And I don’t think I can see _

_ what I’m gaining from this. _

 

Stinky and Spanky:

You’re gaining us! Your friends!

 

_ I think we’d be happier _

_ if we were somewhere else. _

 

At this point Charlie and Frank, who play the antagonists Totti and Scaramouch, make their appearance and Frank sings his song. Then Dennis’ character is killed during the fight and his body is dragged away and the script abruptly interrupts, with Gladys’ great disappointment.

The rest of the clients clap and whistle, so Charlie bows ceremoniously and tells them that the pre-sales for the tickets will open on New Year’s Day, here at Paddy’s pub.

“These poor kittens,” Gladys says. “Trapped with a pack they don’t even want to be with… this is a wonderful metaphor, Charlie.”

“Yeah, actually I didn’t really think that through.”

“That is the strength of literary pieces, darling; you’re doing an amazing job. I will purchase tickets for myself, my wife and all of our friends because I absolutely need to know what will happen to Spanky and his friends and young boy, if I didn’t know better I’d say you just did this to leave us all with a cliffhanger and force us to come to the theatre to see what happens next.”

“Well, no, I didn’t plan that, but we could do it again if it’s working so well,” Charlie says. He turns to the Gang: “Listen, we could do this until every client has played Spanky at least once and then we wouldn’t even have to cast him, we could just ask any random person if they’re up for playing him on stage.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that,” Dee says.

Frank agrees: “If someone notices we’re doing this cliffhanger shit, you’re fucked.”

“Alright, alright, it was just an idea.”

As soon as Dee and Frank are absent, Mac and Charlie do it again. Mac manages to keep a perfectly straight face as Charlie tells him that he’s written a musical, and then Mac pretends to be surprise, and they get three volunteers to play Spanky, Stinky and Totti, and at the end of the rehearsal everyone says they’ll buy tickets for the play.

“Dude, this is insane,” Mac says that night after they’ve closed the bar. “How come so many people like you musical about warrior cats?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand music, man! They just have more ear than you.”

“But I’ve watched a ton of musical!” He frowns. “Maybe I have to be gay for a little longer.”

Charlie raises his eyebrows. “I thought you’d start making more sense once you finally came out but you didn’t.”

Mac shrugs.

A few days later, Charlie drags them to the mall to buy costumes and props. He’s become an absolute perfectionist when it comes to planning this musical, and he refuses to re-use anything from  _ The Nightman Cometh _ . Once they’re outside the building, he gives instructions: they will team up and meet at the center of the mall in exactly two hours for a recap. Charlie calls Frank on his team, saying that he doesn’t trust him at all when it comes to this, which leaves Mac and Dee together which is good because they’ll keep each other in check; Mac and Dee have to find at least three options for their costumes and call him to let him make the final decision, because he doesn’t trust them either so if they buy anything without his consultation he’ll be personally responsible for their strangulation.

And so they part, knowing very well that this quest could fail very miserably.

As soon as they’re alone, Mac and Dee try to come up with an MO.

“We should focus on clothes, weapons, and makeup,” Mac says. “I think we should do the cat eyes thing from last time.”

“Mac, makeup is literally the least important thing. We need to find costumes, not weird plastic eyes or varnish eyeshadow or whatever that was that you put on last time.”

“Okay, we’ll go with the costumes first, and then we’ll find the cat eyes.”

She cringes. “I’m not doing that. We can slap on cat ears or something.”

He’s not backing up on the eyes, but he’s willing to let it go and just casually bring it up again later.

They visit like a thousand stores and try on leather corsets, Dementor capes, weird bondage briefs with spikes but there’s nothing that a cat warrior would wear. The leather corsets were nice but they didn’t fit on Mac’s muscular body.

After what feels like six hours they’re wandering through the mall with no direction when Dee spots a Disney Store and decides that they’re going inside, because at this point for all she cares they can buy plastic princess bags to use as weapons.

They quickly skim through the racks to see if there are any warrior costumes, and whenever someone gets too close to them they pretend to be looking for early Christmas presents for their nephew. Or, rather, Dee makes a stupid British accent and pretends to be doing that, because Mac refuses to talk in posh English to her or to implicate that they have a nephew, even though technically they do have one thanks to that twin sister-blood brother business.

“Hey, Dee,” he calls at one point, “how about this?”

He’s got his eyes on a pretty good sword. She nods, convinced, and snaps a picture with her phone to send Charlie.

“I saw pirate daggers two rows earlier,” she says. “I sent those too. I don’t think they make adult costumes here, though.”

“What are we going to do? We visited like every shop in this goddamn mall!”

She looks at the fitted carpet. They sit on the floor inside the Disney Store and search for costumes online. Now people have to step over them to get past them, and they all make ugly disgusted faces as if they’d never seen two people sitting on a floor. At one point a soccer mom looks at them with particular viciousness so Dee flips her off and she gasps, puts two hands over her heart, and passes them as quickly as possible. Mac laughs.

They find fake muscles costumes and cat collars, and purchase them before they remember that Charlie specifically said not to buy anything without his permission.

“Why did we even buy fake muscles for me?” Mac asks. “I don’t need them! I have muscles!”

“The ones we bought were bigger than yours,” Dee replies, but she doesn’t sound convinced. She’s probably realizing what huge mistake she just made.

They scramble to look for warrior costumes before the time runs up because going back empty handed would be suicide and they actually manage to find a bunch of stuff at a reasonable price. They text them to Charlie, and he calls them back and tells them that the third option they sent him looks just fine so they can get that with Frank’s credit card, and also he and Frank will arrive at the meeting point a little late because Frank went batshit insane and tried to buy BDSM underwear.

At least they put that stuff back after trying it on.

“Can we add collars?” Mac asks, hoping that maybe Charlie will accept one of their compulsive purchases.

Dee makes a defeated grimace even before Charlie screams over the phone,

“No BDSM!”

For the entire trip to the meeting point Mac and Dee argue over whose fault it was that they got all that unnecessary stuff until they remember that anyway they paid for it with Frank’s money so they don’t really give a shit.

The stuff Charlie and Frank got makes the fake muscles look like they could win an Oscar for best costume. There’s a draped velvet black dress and a lot of tatters and a sparkly tablecloth that looks like it’s coming straight out of old sci-fi movies where people wore tinfoil clothes. Mac doesn’t even want to know what will happen once they start prop-hunting.

Then they start prop-hunting and it’s not as bad as he expected. Charlie gets the following: huge cardboard boxes, vinyl glue, acrylic paint, those swords from the Disney Store, tomato juice that will rot before they can even start rehearsing, balloons.

They spend the rest of the afternoon on the bar floor, cursing out and painting boxes to recreate the filthy back alley and the cute little houses where the pack lives.

At one point, Charlie ditches the work to browse the internet on Dee’s phone.

“You’re wasting all of my data!” she complains.

“Shut up, Dee, I’m trying to find a good name for the alley.”

“Search for poets,” Frank recommends. “It’ll look pretentious.”

“Alright, well, do you guys know poets’ names?”

“There’s, ah, Whitman,” Mac offers. “And then… who was that guy we studied in school? Well, there’s Shakespeare but he’s English.”

“Hemingway!” Dee pipes. “I dated a guy once who was—”

“Yeah, no,” Charlie interrupts. “I feel like there’s too many Hs in all those names. Wait, I found a list of American poets, I’ll just pick a random name. Hey, Mac, can you, like, paint a road sign on that cardboard over there?”

“On it.”

Charlie squeezes his eyes, scrolls the list up and down, then stops.

“Okay, I got the name. Uh, weird one, but it’ll do.”

“Wait, I’ve still got to paint the sign.”

Charlie fidgets as Mac takes his time to paint a nice white rectangle on the red bricks and outlines it in green.

“Okay, dude, I’m ready,” he finally states. “What’s the name?”

“It’s H dot H dot Cumming.”

“What? This guy’s called Cumming?”

After the initial shock, Mac just accepts it and carefully writes it in his best calligraphy. He adds the little “ST” at the end of the sign.

“There’s no way America has a poet called H. H. Cumming,” Dee says.

“It’s written right here, Dee!”

“Done!” Mac says right as Dee says,

“Wait!”

“What?”

“This guy’s name is E. E. Cummings, not Cumming! There’s a huge difference!”

“Yeah, but… I already did the sign.”

“Just paint over the ST with the white and add the S!” she says.

“No, I don’t feel like it, I think I’ll leave it like this. All in favor?”

Everyone but Dee raises their hand, even Frank who just stopped giving a shit about this conversation a while ago. Dee groans, but this is how democracy works.

One week later, they finally bring the props to Artemis’ theatre. She helps them but them up and doesn’t bat an eyelash at the street name. She’s finally transcribed the rest of the script and told Charlie that she’ll take up Spanky’s role if they’re missing an actor.

Mac would be pretty excited to rehearse on stage if it wasn’t for Artemis’ presence, which feels out of place and totally uncomfortable.

Dee has diligently learned her song and she sings so stiffly she looks like she’s got a stick up her ass, probably because she doesn’t want Charlie to threaten her like last time, when he told her he’d just delete her song, and also because after her performance Charlie was so pissed at her that he screamed for like five minutes. And that song she added didn’t get her any number, so it was totally worthless.

Charlie tells her that she has to sing with passion, otherwise he’ll have to take up her role and it’ll be a mess later, so he pleads her to sing it again and she adds a little dance and it looks like she’s enjoying herself a little more and Charlie notices too because he looks satisfied, even though he comments with an exhausted “Jesus Christ.”

“We’re the best!” Dee recites, acting like the Eagles just won the Superbowl.

“We… are only  _ five _ cats…” Artemis says, showing the number with her hands (three fingers raised on one, two on the other). “But we are… invincible.”

It doesn’t feel right. This is clearly not how Spanky would say those lines and it doesn’t feel like they’re invincible when Spanky hasn’t died yet but they’re already missing a piece.

Mac sighs. “Even though they keep coming, and coming, and… Charlie, how many times do i have to say this? Jesus.”

“Four times, dude, and then Spanky interrupts you. Don’t break the flow, just go on!”

“Okay, okay. Even though they keep coming, and coming, and coming, and coming, and—”

“And we keep winning, and winning, and winning!”

And then they always went back to the way they were before until they forgot what winning and losing even meant.

“ _ But they keep coming, and coming, and coming _ .”

They just kept plotting schemes and getting hurt and still going on, stubborn like goddamn mules, until Dennis left to be an adult and they realized that twenty years had gone by and they had no idea what they were doing.

“ _ And I don’t think I can see what I’m gaining from this _ .”

“That was good, Mac, you were just on the right side of depressing.”

Artemis says, “Well, if you’re planning on leaving us, do it after today’s battle.

“You know I won’t leave you,” he tells her, and it’s so fucking wrong. “You can’t defeat them without me, dude.”

“Yeah, it’s all of us or nothing!” Dee says, collected, because in these five minutes she’s learned how to act.

“We are all in this together,” Artemis says.

“Together’s where we belong.”

Charlie nods. “Okay, Frank, it’s your turn.”

Frank jumps on stage and roars like a rachitic alley cat.

 

_ Here we come _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by Totti (cat) _

 

_ Here, we are coming _

_ with tiny claws. _

_ We will destroy you _

_ for our gain _

_ and there’s nothing you can do. _

 

“I can hear them come!” Dee shrieks too loudly, unsheathing her pirate dagger.

 

_ Here we come, here we come, _

_ just like every other day. _

_ And we won’t stop coming _

_ until you see _

_ that we’re too powerful for you. _

 

_ We come upon you _

_ and you’re afraid _

_ we’ll finally win. _

_ You’ve never lost _

_ but that don’t mean we won’t stop coming for you. _

 

_ And here we come, _

_ here we come, _

_ just like every other day, _

_ until you fall and die, assholes. _

 

“It will be just like every other time!” Mac sighs at Dee and Artemis. “Nothing ever changes!” He takes out his tiny Disney sword.

Charlie climbs on stage to finish the song with Frank, and he looks goddamn ridiculous with that tiny director's beret.

 

_ Here we come _

_ and you fight _

_ but you are weak kittens. _

_ Here we come _

_ and you fight with tiny claws. _

 

They pretend to claw at Spanky’s face until Artemis falls on the ground with her stomach down, which is supposed to pop the balloon full of tomato juice she’ll be wearing between her boobs. She screams.

 

Spanky:

Ah!

Rainbowrat:

Spanky! I’ll save you

Spanky:

I die!

Stinky:

It’s too late!

Stinky and Rainbowrat:

They’re dragging his body away!

 

“Okay, so at this point me, Frank and Artemis have to run backstage real fast and get changed because we’re playing Mac and Dee’s pack so on my mark you two say your lines and we’ll try to do that. Three, two, one, go!”

“What are we doing to do, Stinky?” Mac asks.

Dee pretends to look scared. “We’ve got to tell the pack, Rainbowrat!”

“But they’ll get mad!” he cries.

“I know, but we have to tell them that we’re down to two!”

“They never check on us, they’ll never find out if we don’t tell them.”

She looks at him with a seriousness she’s never displayed in real life.“They deserve to know.”

“I just hope you know what we’re doing.”

They walk to the other side of the stage, where their pack is supposed to live. Mac takes advantage of the angsty situation to show off Rainbowrat’s moves.

“What is happening?” Charlie recites, appearing from behind the curtains in a rush, still putting on his jacket.

“The enemy got one of ours. He’s dead.”

“What will happen now?” Artemis asks.

“Will you stop defending us?”

“No,” Mac says. He turns to the nonexistent audience: “They don’t care about us; they just want us to protect them because they’re weaker than us. But we have nowhere else to go, so either we fight or we die like Dennis.”

“Spanky,” Dee corrects him, kicking him in the ankle.

“Yeah, I said that.”

“No, you didn’t,” she hisses.

“Stick to the scripted names, Mac, please.”

 

_ Life Goes On _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by Stinky (cat) and Rainbowrat (cat) _

 

_ Rainbowrat _

_ We’re down to two _

_ for the next battle _

_ and I don’t know what we’ll do. _

 

_ Rainbowrat and Stinky _

_ So we’ll do what we’ve always done: _

_ go there and fight against the sun. _

 

_ Stinky _

_ We’re strong and powerful _

_ and just because we’re down to two _

_ doesn’t mean it can’t still be beautiful. _

 

_ Rainbowrat and Stinky _

_ What happened was sad _

_ but we’ll survive because we’re rad. _

 

_ Rainbowrat _

_ What happened was sad _

_ but we’ll survive _

_ because that’s what we do, comrade. _

 

_ Stinky _

_ Our friend is gone _

_ but we’re still here _

_ and life goes on for us, hon. _

 

_ Rainbowrat _

_ But I see, now that he’s gone _

_ that all our life we just survived _

_ And for once I had lived. _

 

_ Rainbowrat and Stinky _

_ There’s no way we can do it, _

_ ‘cause this is the only life we know. _

 

Soon it’s Christmas. It’s the first one Mac will spend alone, and he’s determined not to, so he invites his friends over for Christmas day promising he’ll cook for them since he knows how to do that now thanks to all those recipe books. This way they’ll start a new tradition of gathering at his apartment and having fun and eating delicious food, and he just hopes this won’t turn into a mess like a few years ago when they got sprayed with plastic snow or he’s positive he’ll start screaming hysterically until someone calls the cops.

On December 23rd he ventures into the mall like a man on a mission, like Tom fucking Cruise, like Bruce motherfucking Willis, because not being killed inside the grocery store is almost goddamn impossible. He buys all the ingredients and then when he comes back to the apartment he puts on a lot of Christmas decorations and even a little pine tree. He lays the table even though he’s too days early. He lays the tablecloth, the plates, glasses, and lots of cutlery for everyone like they do at Guigino’s. He puts little place cards decorated with various Christmas pictures, and he’s halfway through writing Dennis’ name when he remembers that Dennis won’t be eating with them, which is really the main reason why he’s doing this.

On Christmas Eve he prepares everything so that the next day he’ll just have to put it in the oven and he’ll be done. When he sees Dennis’ place card in the trash, he has an idea.

Dennis answers after like a minute, when Mac is about to end the call and go moping.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Dennis, hi!” He lolls back and forth smiling stupidly like he wanted to ask Dennis on a date or something. “I was wondering what you’ll be doing tomorrow.”

“Oh, not much. Mandy’s taking Brian to Iowa to visit family. Can you believe? Goddamn  _ Iowa _ . There’s nothing there, just… corn, and… roads that go to other states!”

“There’s Riverside, Iowa,” he notes. “Captain Kirk’s birthplace.”

“He isn’t even born yet! And he’s a fictional character, so there’s still jack shit in Iowa.”

“So… are you spending Christmas alone?”

“No, I’m spending it with a stupid holiday movie, alcohol, and a babe.”

Mandy has told Mac that Dennis hasn’t had anyone over in ages, and she knows because he’s always available if he has to babysit the kid. But maybe he’ll sleep around now that Brian is in Iowa.

Mac chews his middle finger nail. “That’s kind of sad, dude.”

“It’s not sad!”

“Because I was thinking… the Gang is coming over tomorrow and they all miss you a lot, so maybe I could call you on Skype when they get here, and you could sort of spend Christmas Day with us.”

“I don’t… you said they miss me?”

“Yeah, dude, things are really depressing without you, and they would love it so much if you were here with us.”

Dennis remains silent for so long that Mac almost forgets he’s on the line and starts wiping sauce off his face and thinking that he should probably get changed because his clothes are a mess and also the kitchen is a nightmare. He needs to clean everything before tomorrow so the others will think he’s one of those amazing cooks who leave every surface spotless. 

“Okay,” Dennis says. “If you want me to be there, you can call me tomorrow.”

This is the closest he’ll ever get to an “I’d love that,” so Mac beams.

Dennis has always held himself back, especially with Mac, but Mac has learned how to read him a long time ago well enough to know what he means most of the time. He knows that sometimes he still gets it wrong because he’s  _ hoping _ Dennis means something, like when he hoped Dennis meant “I love you” when he said he loved the RPG because Mac meant “I love you” when he said, “I know you, man.” But aside from that, he’s become good. Dennis is a weird language but Mac speaks it pretty well, better than Dennis will give him credit for, because Dennis loves to think of himself as unreadable but Mac knows him.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, buddy.”

He’s never seen Dennis since that disastrous video chat where they didn't meet each other’s eyes, but he hopes that this will be different since now they’re back to talking amicably and they’re pretty much best friends again, even though they’re really far apart and Dennis always sounds even more distant than he is.

Mac attends the midnight mass, which is really cool because he’s sharing this magical moment with a group of chosen people who are strong enough to defy the biting cold and fatigue. This is why they get awesome benefits like a really suggestive atmosphere (Mac and the Gang should totally rip it off for one of their movies), candles, an awful lot of chants because if they don’t sing as often as possible they’ll probably fall asleep and die of hypothermia, and most importantly, a favorable look from Jesus. Old singing lady isn’t there, which disappoints him a little, but it doesn’t matter because tonight’s squad sings better than people who record CDs with Christmas carols and  _ definitely _ better than the Gang.

If Dennis was here, they would have spent the evening together. They would have watched _ Die hard _ , drunk cheap rum punch, and passed out on the sofa half sprawled on top of each other. Mac would’ve woken up in the middle of the night and he would have dragged Dennis to bed and fallen asleep with an arm draped over him and the sour taste of sleep and rum in his mouth.

Tonight, he just tosses his clothes on the floor, flicks the lights off and gets under the covers.

He sleeps through his alarm and wakes up at twelve, which is really fucking late so he turns on the oven and sets the temperature far higher than he should, hoping that things will cook more quickly this way. He puts everything in and drags his half-asleep body under the shower, scrubs furiously until he’s luster, and gets dressed in his best Christmas clothes - a shirt with a sun and a baby reindeer. 

The Gang arrives half an hour later with wine and papery bread. They decided to do secret Santa so everyone has a little present in a plastic bag that goes right under the tiny pine tree.

“Dude, why is there dust on the plates?”

“Oh, that might be because they’ve been there for two days.”

“Still better than our plates,” Frank comments.

“You can dust them if you want,” Mac says. It’s the least they can do. “Oh, by the way, I have wonderful news! Dennis is spending Christmas with us!”

They erupt in shocked responses, so he adds,

“Well, not  _ physically _ . I made plans with him to connect via Skype.”

The excitement dies immediately, replaced by vague agreement.

“Alright,” they say, “Okay. Great. Is that why there are five places?”

“Yeah, duh, we want him to feel at home, not left out. Now I’m going to call him; you dust the stuff because I don’t want that over my delicacies.”

“We’ve got this,” they say.

Sure, he could call him in the dining room, but he’s hoping for a moment alone with him where Dennis will say “Merry Christmas” and it’ll feel like the old times. He needs a moment to remember that if the Gang is their family, they are much more than that.

As soon as Dennis’ face appears on screen, he says,

“Merry Christmas, dude!”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, “You too.”

“We’re so excited to have you here, dude, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas without you!”

Dennis looks sideways. “I sure goddamn hope so.”

“Ready to see the others?”

“It’s not hard, Mac, why are you even in the bedroom? Couldn’t you just call me from the living room?”

“Yeah, I just… never mind! Let’s go. It will be great, Dennis.”

He goes back to the dining room, where the others are done polishing and are already sitting at their assigned places.

“Here’s the man!” Charlie says when he sees Dennis.

“Hey-o!”

“Dee, Charlie, Frank.”

“How’s the kid?” Frank asks.

Dennis’ reply sounds a little defensive, but Mac can’t see his face because the laptop is turned toward the others. “He’s fine. Growing.”

“Wouldn’t have guessed,” Frank laughs.

“When are we eating? I’m starving in here.”

“Now, Dee, Jesus. Dennis, I’m going to put you here at the head of the table in front of me, okay?”

“It’s not that… did you make a card for me?”

“Yeah, of course. I made one for everybody.”

Dennis’ face is carved in marble, which means he’s probably touched.

“Now, the food.”

He runs to the kitchen and returns with trays of food, and everything looks pretty good so he’s crowing his fingers hoping it’ll be just as tasty. He cuts the meat in slices and gives generous portions to everyone. He considers putting one on Dennis’ plate, too, but the guy glares at him when he approaches so maybe he’d better not.

He sits down and raises his glasses. He suddenly notices that Dennis has one too, filled with either tea, dark beer or scotch - it’s hard to tell from a distance.

“I would like to propose a toast,” he says, “to the Gang.”

“To the Gang,” everyone repeats. They down their wine.

It’s not the Gang as they’ve always known it and it will never be again, but it’s still the Gang.

“And I would like to thank you all for being here, because you are very important people to me and I’m very happy to celebrate of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ with you.”

“We’re here for the gifts,” Dee says.

He’s about to scold her but he sees Dennis smile so he just ignores her. He folds his hands and closes his eyes.

“Thank you, Lord, for—”

“What the hell is this?” Charlie screeches.

“Goddamn, this is awful!” Frank says.

He opens his eyes. His friends started eating as soon as he closed his eyes - which is rude but he’ll let it slide because they’re all spitting their bite out and Dennis is sneering.

“I was poisoned!” Dee shrieks.

“Shut up, you weren’t poisoned!”

“Dude, seriously, what the fuck did you feed us?”

“I may have accidentally cooked this at the wrong temperature to do it quicker.”

“Jesus Christ, dude.”

“And also I cooked everything together so the whole meal is ruined.  _ But _ , I bought cream pies.”

Dennis starts laughing for real and then they’re all laughing and he balls his hands in fists but there’s nobody to fight.

“Shut up! Shut up or you’re not eating anything!” 

They do shut up once they have a majestic cream cake right in front of them, and even Dennis stops laughing and takes a sip of his stupid sad beer. And so they eat industrial cake for lunch, and it’s so good that nobody cares if it’s super unhealthy. After all, the entire point of Christmas is to eat a lot of caloric food and only to worry about the consequences when it’s time to make New Year’s resolutions. Well, that and getting presents and celebrating Jesus and being kinder with each other, but they still have to work on all those things. And thanks to these cakes the Gang is cheerful again and Mac can feel the spirit of Christmas if he looks at their satisfied faces and the decorations around the apartment and the shimmering lights he put up on the walls around them. Dennis looks a little bored but Mac is sure that once they all start chatting he will enter the conversation.

They’re all replete after eating half of their cakes and Charlie proposes that they open the presents. Dennis watches with interest.

“Frank, you go first!” Mac says, because he was Frank’s Secret Santa and he wants to see his reaction immediately.

Frank unwraps the paper and goes, “What the hell is this?”

“It’s an electric bug vacuum!” Mac pipes. “For your apartment!”

“Mac,” Dennis says, “you know he’s supposed to guess who gave him the gift, right?”

“I didn’t say it was me!”

“You kind of made it clear,” Dee says. “Whatever. I’ll open mine now.”

Dee’s gift is a pair of used red suede cowboy boots.

“I wore ‘em in ‘nam,” Frank says, and he looks almost moved or maybe he’s just restraining himself from laughing. “They look kind of girly now and I thought they’d go well with your style since it’s all over the place anyway.”

Her thanks are bitter but she’s actually admiring the design, which means she’ll probably spray them with a can of deodorant and use them for one of her characters.

“Okay, Mac, go with yours.”

Mac’s present is a doorknob.

“Charlie?” he guesses, because only Charlie would give him a doorknob. He raises his head and meets Dennis’ eyes and smiles because the guy is silent but he’s enjoying himself immensely and it shows.

“Dude, the one you have in your bathroom has been broken for like three months.”

He never bothered to fix it because he doesn’t need to close the door since he’s the only one in the apartment, but maybe he’ll put this up now that Charlie gave it to him.

“Thank you, dude. You're last.”

They didn’t get anything for Dennis, but it’s not like they could have. Still, he can’t help but feel a bit shitty about it because they’re leaving him out and that’s exactly what he wanted to avoid.

“Dee, you got me… socks?”

Dennis sneers.

“They’re warmed by batteries!” she explains.

“Oh, well, thank you. That’s very, uh, kind.”

“Oh my god, guys,” Dee says all of a sudden, “did I tell you that Gladys gave me a Christmas present?”

“Gladys?” Dennis asks. “That old bitch?”

“Oh, no, not that one,” Frank dismisses him. “We found another one.”

Dennis frowns, and now that Mac takes a better look at him it looks like his grin is glued to his face, which is not a good sign. They should have gotten him a gift.

“And what is that?” Charlie asks.

“A sponge that looks like a microphone. To sing in the shower. I think she made it because there’s no way she found it anywhere.”

“Why did she only get you a present? She sang with me like seven times!”

“Uh, who always takes her shopping when she argues with her wife?”

“That happened once and you just went because you wanted her to buy you clothes.”

“It was a mutually beneficial agreement!”

“Drew and Maurice also got me a present!” Mac chimes.

“Why is everyone getting presents?”

“Okay, so, remember that time I went with them at Drew’s nephew’s baseball match because they needed people to boo at the opponents?”

“Yeah, and you were borrowing my t-shirt because Frank spilled paint on yours so my cats thought you were me and they followed you.”

“Yeah and they had to suspend the game for like twenty minutes to send them all away, and a shit ton of single mothers asked for my phone number, which, well. Anyway I told Maurice and Drew that my dad would never play catch with me so they gave me two tickets to see the Phillies.”

They all burst out yelling and arguing over who should go with Mac, because Dee downloaded every episode of  _ Brooklyn Nine Nine  _ for him last week but Charlie is more friends with Drew and Maurice and, “Bullshit, Charlie,” Frank has tasted fine wine with every member of the chess crew so he’s more entitled to the tickets, and Mac would gladly give the tickets to the waitress at this point but Charlie has given up stalking her long ago so he doesn’t know where she is anymore; and Dee should totally get that ticket, she says, because Charlie and Frank would ruin everything just like they ruined that night where everyone was watching tv at the bar and they brought in that goddamn flea circus, which  _ didn’t ruin anything, Dee _ , because everyone loved that flea circus and Frank even took a group picture—

“ _ Enough _ !” Dennis shouts. “Do you even hear yourselves?”

“Yeah, so? We’re trying to decide who gets the ticket!”

“You’re not deciding who gets the tickets, you’re arguing like beasts! You dare calling yourself  _ people _ when you’re disgusting beasts fighting for a piece of meat! Look at you, bitching about tickets and… and bath sponges and goddamn electric socks—”

“I think you’re just mad because we didn’t get you anything,” Dee says.

Dennis’ voice is strangled. “I’m not— you bitch! I couldn’t care less about your new clients and their stupid presents! I couldn’t care less about your presents, either! They all suck!”

“Well, we like our presents, dude!” Charlie says, and Dee beams at him. “And we like our new clients, too, so fuck you.”

“You don’t  _ like _ them!” Dennis argues. “You just hang out with them for benefits, you said it yourselves!”

“Just because they give us awesome gifts doesn’t mean they’re not our friends.”

“We care about them, asshole.”

“Oh, I forgot you’ve all become goddamn saints now that I’ve left!” At this point he stopped climbing on mirrors to get to  _ his _ point and he just started smashing them because this is what Dennis does when he’s hurt. “You… befriend stupid chess players and old ladies, now, how considerate of you!”

“Yeah, well, maybe we did get better without you!”

“ _ How dare you _ ?”

“You left us! We moves on from you, dude!”

“Oh, I can see how you moved on, you must be so goddamn joyful that I left! You just needed me to go away to start fucking thriving, is that what you think? But let me tell you this, you little assholes, you are nothing without me! You’re pathetic, and miserable! I am indispensable to the wellbeing of this group!”

“Clearly not.”

“You—”

“Dennis…” Mac says, and Dennis glares at him and ends the call.

“Guy’s an asshole,” Frank comments.

“Yeah, dude, what the hell is wrong with him? What were we supposed to do when he left, die?”

“Was he really expecting us to be miserable without him? Of course we moved on.”

Mac knows that maybe he played a part in Dennis’ breakdown when he kept telling him how much the Gang missed him and how enthusiastic they were to see him again when they weren’t really. He tried to hard to include him, but of course he felt left out when the rest of them started talking about people he doesn’t know and about the awesome gifts they got and how much fun they have at the bar. The Gang, the Gang as it was, that’s gone; but the four of them are still here and they’re still friends, and Dennis wasn’t expecting that. For a long time Mac didn’t expect that either.

They still miss Dennis, but just like ten months ago they move on to have fun because they never really depended on him to do that. They sing with Mac’s karaoke machine and make plans to go skiing again and spend a lot of time trying to get tickets for a concert and they even create fake Facebook profiles to trick people into giving them away. They don’t make it but they’re so tipsy on laughter and drunk on red wine and cheap fizz that they don’t really care.

Mac finds his joy again - the Gang has that power on him - and ends up smiling until they stumble out of the door on unsure legs singing obscene carols and he closes the door behind them.

He turns back inside. He’ll have to remove all those decorations but he worked so hard to put them up that maybe it’s fine if he leaves them there for a week or two. He puts the dishes in the dishwasher and flaps the tablecloth to get rid of the crumbles. He puts Charlie’s doorknob in the bathroom cabinet and he throws away the wrapping paper. He finishes his cream pie staring at the laptop at the other end of the table.

He takes it to the living room and calls Dennis again. Dennis accepts the call.

“You alone?” he asks, trying to look around even though he can’t.

“Yeah. Are you still angry?”

“Yes, and I don’t want to talk to you,” Dennis says, which is really stupid because he literally is talking to Mac right now.

“That’s okay. I just wanted to watch  _ Die hard  _ and I was wondering if you’d watch it with me.”

Dennis squints but still nods, so he puts the computer on the sofa right beside him and pops in the DVD. When the word “ _ DIEHARD _ ” appears onscreen he peeks at Dennis through the reflection on the tv, and sees that his features are softer. He’s letting his guard down like he does when nobody’s watching - or sometimes when it’s just the two of them and he forgets about keeping the shields up because it doesn’t matter anyway, he’s safe with Mac.

“D’you get anything for Brian?” he asks, looking at John McClane’s huge teddy bear.

“Yeah, I got him a book about trucks and a box of Legos.”

“The age appropriate ones, I hope.”

“Obviously. I don’t want him to choke on a plastic brick, who did you take me for?”

“Right, sorry.”

They watch the movie. Sometimes Mac watches Dennis because he knows this movie well anyway but Dennis is never the same. You can’t get tired of him.

“I miss you,” he says at one point when McClane is running around covered in blood. It’s not a very romantic moment but nothing’s happening, and also every moment is good to tell people how you feel about them.

Dennis sighs. “Watch the movie, Mac.”

When Die hard ends, Mac lies down on the sofa and balances the laptop on his thighs. It’s really late and he can feel his eyes closing, but he’s still hyped from the day and the movie and Dennis.

“I can see your double chins,” Dennis says. “You’re gross.”

“I don’t have double chins.”

“You definitely do, pal,” he laughs. 

Mac laughs too.

“Hey, dude, I know that the guys were very rude to you today and I just want you to know that I do not condone their behavior in any way, but—”

“Leave it.”

“No, listen, it’s not like we got better because you left. We got better on our own. If anything, you inspired us when you went away! No, wait, that came out wrong.”

“I said  _ leave it _ , Mac.”

He sees that Dennis is getting angry again so he does as he says, but he needed him to know that there would be nothing better than him coming back.

“Okay, but you should know that we all miss you. Even though I miss you more because you’re my best friend.”

Dennis looks down. “I should get going. You look like you’re going to pass out any second.”

“Dennis, wait, don’t go!”

“What?”

“Stay with me until I fall asleep? Please?”

Dennis doesn’t answer but he also doesn’t end the call, so Mac takes it as a sign of assent and relaxes. He smiles at him.

The screen goes blank.

He puts the laptop on the floor and falls asleep on the sofa.

 

On New Year’s Day, they open the tickets sales both at the bar and at Artemis’ theatre. Drew and Maurice from the chess crew helped them make flyers and even a poster that says “ _ CATS by Charlie Kelly _ ” in yellow over a picture of Charlie and Dee fighting in costume. “ _ CREATED, WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY CHARLIE KELLY _ ,” it goes, “ _ STARRING: THE GANG _ .”

Charlie is almost bursting out if his skin and he’s driving all of them nuts with his stupid perfectionism. It feels like they’re going live on national television every time they rehearse even though the show is at the end of the month.

Charlie gets old Gladys to play the piano, and says he hopes she never runs into new Gladys and that’s another thing to worry about because he really doesn’t want two old women pulling each other’s hair or breaking each other’s hips the night of the show. He seems to have missed that old Gladys is like thirty years older than new Gladys so they can’t have been in school together pulling each other’s hair and calling each other lesbians, but nobody tries to correct him because at the moment going against Charlie would be worse than fighting a god, or something equally terrifying.

Charlie is also obsessed with preserving the Gang’s health, which means he forces them to wear five scarves whenever they go outside. They comply until Dee sweats so much she gets a cold and Charlie freaks out so much that he reduces the number to two. Dennis would say that it’s a goddamn tour de force but it feels like a game if they pretend that Charlie won’t snap them in half if they lose.

The day before the musical’s debut, they rehearse one last time in costume. Charlie is wearing the black velvet dress; Dee has a patchwork cloak over a Snow White costume; Frank is wearing the fake muscles, but they came in deflated and he just looks like himself but with a double skin and he’s awful; Mac is literally just wearing a sewed tablecloth.

They sing  _ Just Another Day _ ,  _ What Are We Doing? _ ,  _ Here We Come _ ,  _ Life Goes On _ ,  _ Takes More Than Death _ .

“I fight alone!” Dee cries, and she’s the last one standing with Charlie and Frank gripping her by the arms. She falls on the ground, almost twisting her shoulder because they keep holding her arms and they don’t move when she does. Charlie takes both her wrists and pretends to tie them behind her back but when he’s done she brushes a lock of hair out of her face.

“I am sorry, my friend, but we will have to take you prisoner!” Charlie claims. “Don’t pretend to wipe away tears, Dee, your hands are supposed to be tied!”

“Can’t you tie them in front of me instead of behind?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Wait, I have to untie you and then—”

“There is no rope, Charlie, we’ll just pretend that’s what you did already! Everybody abandoned us,” she resumes. “Our pack will never come to save us!”

Frank puts a hand on her shoulder. “Now that we’ve won, we don’t hurt you.”

 

_ Come With Us _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by Scaramouch (cat) _

 

_ If you join us, you could be happy _

_ If you leave us you'll stay chained _

_ and before this gets all sappy _

_ please join me in this refrain: _

 

_ I want peace for both; there's no lie _

_ I don't want life to be mean. _

_ come with us and you'll be happy _

_ you will never be alone _

_ what a fighter you have been _

_ come with us and find your home. _

 

The musical ends with a group song, just like the other one. Mac has to take Artemis’ hand and for the entire time he can’t even focus on the singing because he’s thinking about how clammy her hand is and how weird it is to hold someone’s hand when that someone isn’t Dennis - he wouldn’t mind the sweat if it was Dennis’ because he’d just have to focus on him and tune out the gross part and that would literally be the easiest thing to do.

At the end of the song they bow. Mac looks at his right, where Charlie is looking at a fixed point in the audience with a concentrated expression. The guy prides himself on few things and musicals are one of them, so Mac can see how desperately he wants this to go well. It’s like, if they do this right then they haven’t wasted twenty years. And it would also mean that they can, for once, pull something off perfectly.

Speaking of perfection, Artemis is bowing at Mac’s left and she’s totally ruining the picture. She really shouldn’t be here. When Mac looks at her face his brain just forms question marks. He knows, obviously, that she’s Dennis’ replacement. But nobody should replace him.

Suddenly, the lights go off and the stage plunges in the dark.

“No, why, why, why!” Charlie cries. He disentangles himself from his friends and runs offstage to see what’s the problem and fix it before he goes completely mad.

Mac quickly leaves Artemis’ hand. She just goes to Frank and chats him up. Dee folds her arms and sits down with a heavy sigh.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re doing it tomorrow,” she says, not exactly talking to anybody.

Mac totally gets her, though. Something’s off. This doesn’t feel like the last rehearsal. There’s no excitement in him, no anticipation, none of those fuzzy anxious bubbles in his stomach, even though they’re performing tomorrow in front of a shitload of people and he should be here hyping himself up, because they musical is great and the songs are great and they’ll be amazing and everyone will love them.

There’s none of this. Something’s missing.

He looks at the others, and he knows exactly what’s been missing for almost a year. He’s missing from the musical and the show will never be perfect without him, it will never be right. And more importantly he’s missing from Mac’s life, and Mac wants him back.

“Guys,” he says really loud.

“What?” Frank asks.

“I’m going to get Dennis back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tune in next week (I hope) for the final chapter, How Mac Lost His Clothes


	3. How Mac Lost His Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac loses his clothes, the Gang performs the musical, and Dennis is an idiot

_ Tell me how I can tell him I love him, so _

_ tell me how. _

_ I mean I guess he knows _

_ just like I know when he says something _

_ funny and I laugh from my belly _

 

Jens Lekman,  _ How can I tell him _

  
  


Dee drives him to the airport, and for the entire trip her hands claw at the wheel like she’s afraid he’ll wreck the car just with his presence. When she drops him off, she wishes him good luck and intimates him to come back in time, because if he misses the show, Charlie will literally explode.

The airport is packed, and he almost gets his phone stolen as he turns it off.

He should have done this a long time ago - just take off for North Dakota, show up at Dennis’ door and tell him, even though he’s not sure what exactly it is that he should have told him. He’s already said “we miss you,” but maybe it isn’t enough if it’s said over a video chat. Words don’t mean much if you just say them and do nothing, after all. But now at least he doesn’t have to worry about this, because he’s going there to ask him to come back for a very specific reason. He doesn’t even have to worry about Dennis saying no, because he’ll never refuse if Mac tells him how much they need him - which moreover is what he wanted to hear on Christmas. Well, they really do need him, now. Spanky isn’t Spanky if Dennis doesn’t play him.

He checks in his bag, which contains his ticket, a toothbrush and a scarf that Dee had in the car and gave to him at the last minute.

There’s no beer in the waiting room, so he settles for a coke. He looks at a Snickers bar for a solid minute but decides that he’ll eat with Dennis when he lands. Dennis probably hasn’t eaten anything decent in a year, considering that the only time they’d have a good meal was during their monthly dinners. He misses those. They could have one tonight.

He sits on a metal bench close to a blonde woman with three kids who pierce his ears with their screams. After a while he just can’t help staring at her with bewilderment because she doesn’t try to contain them in any way, not even when one of them throws peach juice on Mac’s hoodie, which is literally the only thing he’s wearing. The only thing he can do is to tell the kid to get lost and tap his foot on the floor to release the frustration, praying that they won’t be sitting next to him on the plane.

He’s annoyed, sure, but the anger evaporates quickly because not even these demonic people can ruin his mood. He feels like his heart is going to burst any second now. Energy is running through his body and he feels elated, like he’s breathing too much oxygen. He’s going to get Dennis back.

Now, he has no doubt that Dennis will come with him once Mac tells him about the musical, and that’s settled, but there are still a lot of unknowns, especially regarding how Dennis will react when he finds Mac at his door. He wouldn't mind if Dennis gasped and took Mac’s face in his hands and kissed him, but he knows it won’t happen, and he’s fully prepared for Dennis to just smash the door in his face, or to receive him with glacial coldness and make it clear that he’s not welcome in the new apartment. This is probably the only thing that wears his excitement down a little. He takes in a sharp breath and tries to get rid of these scenarios and focus on the happy ones, because after all he’s got six hours before reality invests him like a jet of cold water and it would be really stupid to start worrying about it now when instead he can use of this time to make up good fantasies. He wonders what would happen if he rang Dennis’ doorbell and kissed him as soon as he opens the door - kissed him so good he’d never want to tear himself away. But he knows it would be a bad idea.

When the flight starts boarding he runs through the corridor as fast as he can until he reminds himself to keep it cool and slightly slows his pace down. When he hands his boarding ticket to the hostess she gives him a weird look, probably because he’s jumping up and down, but she’s not flying over half of the country to see the love of her life so she can’t say anything to him. When she’s done he basically tears the ticket off her hands and frantically looks for his seat even though he knows that the plane won’t take off sooner. He still has to restrain himself from yelling at everyone to move faster because they’re all so damn slow, like how much time does it take to place your luggage on the racks and sit down?

His seat mate is an old guy with an enormous white beard who sees him bouncing his leg and asks him if he’s traveling for work or for pleasure.

“For pleasure,” he says. “We’re performing a musical tomorrow and I’m going to ask my best friend if he wants to be in it.”

The guy gapes a couple of time, looking really perplexed. “What musical?”

“ _ Cats _ —”

“Oh, I know that one.” He’s relieved, but he didn’t let Mac finish.

“No, not  _ Cats _ by Th. S. Eliot.  _ Cats _ by C. Kelly.”

If the guy wasn’t totally confused earlier he sure as hell is now. He squares Mac from top to bottom, clearly trying to deduce something more about him, but Mac is wearing black trousers and a plain blue hoodie stained with peach juice, and the makeup he’s wearing since rehearsal isn’t even visible, so he’s not giving much away. He’s just a forty year old boy with slicked hair, a beautiful face and a hot body.

“I see,” the guy finally says, clearly not seeing anything.

“And what about you?” Mac asks, amicable. “Work or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” the guy answers laconically, and then he fastens his seatbelt and looks out of the window.

Mac waits for him to look back at him but it doesn’t matter so after a couple of seconds he shrugs and goes back to his business. He has five hours and a half to kill so he needs to decide what movies to watch, especially because he’ll go mad if he spends more than three minutes ruminating on his situation.

He chooses  _ The Princess Bride  _ and then a movie set in the 1920s with Leonardo DiCaprio, whose title he forgets in an instant because he’s too focused on the plot, and he doesn’t understand if he’s supposed to root for the protagonist or not because he’s in love with a woman but the whole straight romance going on doesn’t look that romantic so he’s not sure if he should like it or not, and also the other protagonist is also supposed to be straight but he’s clearly not. The movie is a little boring but Leonardo DiCaprio organizes the best parties.

When it ends there’s still a long time left before they land and he tries to look out of the window but he stops when the old man starts glancing at him. It seems that he’s trying to understand if Mac can be trusted or not, but Mac thinks that it’s only a matter of time before boredom takes over him and he chats Mac up again, like in  _ Fight Club _ \- even though that didn’t end really well. 

“So,” the guy says when they’re half an hour from landing. “Are you an actor? A singer?”

“Oh, no, I’m a bartender.”

The guy’s shoulders sink. Mac thinks that being unreadable is pretty funny. At this point he could tell him literally anything and the guy would have to believe him.

“I’m going to my daughter’s wedding,” the guy exhales after a couple of minutes, so quick that Mac wonders if he’s been waiting to reveal this the entire time.

“Congratulations, I guess.” The guy doesn’t sound really happy about this wedding so he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to cheer or not.

“The guy’s a dick,” he mumbles. “He’s not right for her.”

“Oh. Ah, sorry about that.”

“Don’t be a dick, son. Especially to your girlfriend’s father.”

“Uh, I— well, there’s no problem about that.”

The man nods. “Very good, son. Never be a dick.”

“So, uh, will you try to stop the wedding?”

“Oh, yes. As soon as I see my Margaret at the airport I’ll make her come to her senses. I even got proof, look.” He fumbles in his jacket pockets. “She can’t marry him.”

“I once went to a wedding where everyone turned into zombies,” Mac offers as a consolation. “The groom lost an eye.”

“Fucking hope he loses an eye,” the guy grunts, engrossed in the piece of paper he’s taken out of his jacket. “Look at the invitation,” he says. “It’s indecent!”

Mac takes the invitation from his hands. It’s lilac, with little flowers at the edges. “ _ Dennis and Margaret cordially invite you to their wedding _ ,” he reads. “How is this indecent?”

“They didn’t even put their surnames on it! What next, they’ll get married at Applebees?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess,” he mumbles. He looks at it again and feels a fist hit his chest and push him to the seat. “Wait, your daughter’s marrying a dick called Dennis in North Dakota?”

“Oh, not if I get to her first. She won’t marry a moron she’s known for less than a year.”

Dennis absolutely will not marry a woman called Margaret the night of the musical, this is goddamn sure. 

Mac puts a hand on the guy’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he says looking at him in the eyes. “I’ll talk some sense into him.”

The guy’s eyes pop open in astonishment. “You mean you know him?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” he admits. “But I know a dick called Dennis who’s got a history of marrying and having children with women whose name begins with  _ Ma _ , so this could totally be my man. The one I’m going to North Dakota for, I mean. My man.”

The man nods solemnly. “If this is your Dennis, be sure to punch him in the jaw.”

“I will.” He’s learned a long time ago that wanting to do that usually was a stand in for something else, so he’ll “punch” him in the face with much enthusiasm if this is what the man is requesting.

“Thank you, son.”

“He won’t marry your girl, sir. If he’s my man, I mean.”

“Is this a deal?”

The guy offers him a hand, and he shakes it. The deal is sealed.

When they land, he wishes the old man good luck and says goodbye to him. He checks if he’s still got the return ticket in his backpack, his phone on one pocket and wallet in the other, and he decides that he can’t show up at Dennis’ apartment with a stained hoodie, so he jumps on a taxi and instructs the driver to take him to the nearest mall. He has barely enough money to buy anything, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that jazz. He’s seen Uncle Ben get murdered enough time to know that.

The taxi leaves him in a mall and he spends five minutes in front of a map trying to decide where to shop and most importantly how the hell to get there in this maze. Since he’s at it he’d be really dumb if he didn’t buy something really fancy to impress Dennis and make him see what he’s missing. Especially if he’s really going to marry this Margaret girl.

While he’s still in front of the map, something hits his shoe.

It’s a squishy red ball that easily fits in his hand when he picks it up. He looks around, but he doesn’t see anyone looking for it - there’s just people walking by, and nobody’s even noticed a ball randomly bouncing on the floor. He shrugs and absent-mindedly puts it in his trousers pocket, forgetting about it the moment his hand releases it. He looks at the map one more time and finally decides where he’s going to shop.

He makes two and a half steps before he sees a huge dog running right toward him with the force of a thousand cyclones. He freezes, and a moment later the dog is on him and he loses his balance and falls on the ground, and the dog gnaws at his pants and digs its nails into his legs while Mac tries to shake it away until a screaming woman manages to pull it away from him. The little shit only lets her drag it away once it’s got its mouth on the goddamn red ball.

The woman helps Mac get up. He’s bleeding and his pants are shredded and not in a fashionable way. They’re literally hanging in pieces.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the woman says. 

“It ripped my pants into pieces!”

“I’m sorry, but you took his ball.”

He’s about to raise hell at her and her dog, but then he remembers that he’s eager to get to Dennis and now he has to buy a new pair of trousers, too, so he just shoots the dog a deadly glare and leaves her in the middle of another shitty apology.

People glance weirdly at him when he walks into the store, probably because of the stained hoodie and shredded legs and the fact that nobody looks good after six hours on a plane. He pretends there’s nothing gross about his appearance and looks at the clothes on sale with all the dignity in the world like he’s a millionaire in a Gucci atelier or something.

He finds a nice ocher shirt with short sleeves that doesn’t come in his size but will do because he knows he’s like five seconds away from being escorted outside so he just hopes it’ll fit on his muscles and bolts to the changing rooms to hide in one of them. He takes off his hoodie and instead of hanging it on one of the hooks he decides to throw it on top of the door, but his arms are too strong and the hoodie flies across the door and lands on the floor. He’ll pick it up later.

He tries on the shirt, and it’s definitely too small, to the point where he can’t even close all the buttons. He opens the cabin door to get his hoodie back, but it’s gone.

“Goddamnit.”

Maybe a shop assistant picked it up thinking it was one of their clothes or a piece of cloth that someone left on the floor instead of throwing it away in the trash, which after all is what he would have done after buying the new shirt. He runs outside the changing area to look for it, but another assistant sees him and leaves out a horrified gasp.

“Sir, you can’t stay here,” she hisses, approaching him. “If you’re going to buy the shirt you’re wearing, please pay for it and go.”

“Alright, okay, don’t push me!”

He puts a hand in his left pocket, where his wallet should be, but it’s not there. He halts. It must have fallen out when the dog threw him on the ground. He looks at the assistant, who’s waiting for him tapping her feet and she looks like she’s about to bust a vein probably because he’s bleeding over her precious carpeted floor.

He runs out of the shop and out of the mall and all around it without looking back. When he’s safe, he rummages in his backpack praying to find spare change to pay for a taxi, because it’s mid January and he’s literally about to freeze to death.

Thankfully, taxi drivers aren’t really picky when it comes to clients, so he manages to hop on one and give Dennis’ address even though he’s wearing a half-buttoned shirt and he probably looks like a hobo in general.

When he gets there, he rings the doorbell furiously and rubs his arms to avoid dying of hypothermia.

He rings the doorbell again.

Dennis’ building is pretty tall, and it looks so warm inside.

He rings the doorbell again.

Again.

He’s seriously risking a bad case of pneumonia here so he can’t really do subtle at the moment. He thanks God and all the saints that he still has his phone, and he turns it back on for the first time since Philly. Charlie has called him seven times, Dee twice. He calls Dennis.

“Dude, where are you? You’re not marrying Margaret, right?” he asks as soon as Dennis picks up.

“I— who the hell is Margaret?” Dennis replies, astounded.

“Well, I met this guy and he told me that his daughter Margaret was marrying a guy called Dennis in North Dakota and—”

“I’m not the only person called Dennis in the whole state!”

“Is that Mac?” Charlie asks over the phone.

“Dude,  _ is that Charlie _ ?”

“Mac,” Charlie says over Dennis’ phone.  “You really should have answered to my calls, pal.”

“Charlie, why are you with Dennis?”

“Are you in North Dakota right now?”

“Yes! What is happening?”

“Wait, I’ll give you Dennis back, he looks like he’s going to cry.”

“You absolute idiot!” Dennis shouts. “Why the hell did you go to North Dakota?”

“To ask you to come back to Philly!”

“Well, while I’m touched by your gesture, Mac, this was really goddamn stupid.”

“Why is Charlie with you, dude?” Mac asks, his voice very small.

“Because I’m already in Philly, you idiot! I landed three hours ago!”

“But… but why are you there?”

Dennis sighs. “I knew about the musical all along, okay? I was planning a surprise for you, and you ruined it.”

Dennis knew all along. Dennis wanted to surprise him. Dennis was flying to Philadelphia while Mac was flying in the opposite direction.

He’s so shocked that he forgot to jump up and down to keep himself warm.

“Mac, you still there?”

“Yeah… dude, I’m really freezing out here; how far does Mandy live?”

“Can’t you check in a hotel?”

“Lost my wallet. Long story. Also don’t have a coat. Oh, I have Dee’s scarf! Wait a second, Dennis; don’t hang up.” He puts his phone down and frantically opens the backpack to get the scarf, and after he’s put it on he feels a little bit better. “Okay, I’m back.”

“Jesus Christ, Mac.”

“Yeah.”

“Mandy isn’t far. If you call her she should be home, and she can pick you up. Wait, I’ll give you her number.”

“Oh, I already have it.”

“Why do you have Mandy’s number?” Dennis asks, bewildered.

“We kept in touch after you left.”

“I’m not even surprised.”

“Then… I guess I’ll see you in Philly.”

“Yeah. And, Mac?”

“Yes, Dennis?”

“I’m glad. That you wanted me here.”

“I told you I missed you.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m really going to hang up now.”

“See you tomorrow.”

He crawls really close to the walls, hoping to get some warmth from there, and dials Mandy’s number. She’s shocked to hear where he is, but once he explains the situation she says she’ll come and get him immediately. It’s probably because she’s a mother so she has all these protective instincts. And also because maybe they’ve become friends by now.

Five minutes later he sees a car pull up the sidewalk and runs toward it without even checking if it’s Mandy, but fortunately it is in fact her and he hops inside the car and breathes out a sigh of relief when the wave of hot hair hits his barren chest.

“Oh hey, little guy,” he says when he notices that Brian Jr. is sitting in the backseat next to him.”

“Say hi, honey.” Mandy turns over her seat to look at them both. “Mac, why on earth are you dressed like that?”

“I’m also bleeding.”

“Oh my god, why?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Can we go?”

She gives him one more astonished look but then she just turns back and drives. Brian watches him with interest, and Mac smiles at him.

Five more minutes and they’re inside Mandy’s apartment, and she gasps when the sees the mess on his legs and brings him hydrogen peroxide to clean him up, so he spends fifteen minutes in her bathroom with only his briefs on and a blanket over his shoulders hissing and repeating “ouch” in increasing higher pitches as he pours the liquid over his wounds.

Mandy asks him if he’s had anything for dinner and when he says no she tells him she has leftover pasta which he eagerly accepts. And this is how he ends up eating pasta in his underwear while the mother of Dennis’ son does the dishes and the kid plays with Lego in the living room. He tells her the story of how he lost his clothes and she laughs, half amused and half horrified, while he just sits there demoralized.

“You’ll need new clothes, then,” she says when he’s done.

“Dennis’ stuff doesn’t fit me. I’m too muscular.”

She raises her eyebrows. “I don’t have Dennis’ stuff here, but my sister lives with me, and she’s just your size.”

“I don’t want your sister’s clothes,” he protests, but she hits him with a towel to shush him and tells him he’ll like them and disappears in one of the bedrooms.

She reemerges after a minute with cargo pants, a black t-shirt and a grey hoodie, which are actually nice, so he thanks her and puts them on right there because there’s no point in going to the bedroom to get dressed when he’s already half naked.

She tells him she’s making barley water for herself and her sister, who’s coming home later, and asks him if he wants some.

“Is it good?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t be making it otherwise, don’t you think?”

“Good point. Okay, then.”

Then she asks him if he wants to help her put Brian to bed, so he reads him a bedtime story and does the voices and everything and the kid has a lot of fun, and he enjoys it too. When he’s done he ruffles Brian’s hair and tells him that his dad must be really proud of him, and he really believes it because he’s been a really good boy the entire time Mac’s been there. He leaves the room to let his mother kiss him goodnight and waits for her in the kitchen. When he comes back, she pours him a cup of barley water and he warms his hands on it.

“Is it okay if you sleep on the sofa?” she asks.

“Yeah. I have to leave really early tomorrow morning to catch the plane or I won’t make it in time, though, so can you ride me there?”

She nods. “If you’d called me before coming here, I would have told you Dennis had left.”

“It was kind of a last minute decision. Wait, so you knew about the musical?”

“Musical? No, I just knew that he was going to visit you and he didn’t tell you because he had a big surprise - you’re doing a musical?”

“Yeah, Charlie wrote it. I came here to ask Dennis to do it with us because Charlie wrote a part from him but he wasn’t there obviously so we had to ask a friend to replace him but my character is, like, supposed to be in love with her character and I can’t just  _ fake _ that.”

She slides over the love confession and takes a sip of her drink. “Well, he was really excited about going back,” she comments. “He’s been talking about this surprise for months. He’s a bit of a drama queen.”

“Don't tell me.”

“You know,” she says, “I think he misses you folks a lot, but he’s not sure you guys feel the same, so he just pretends he doesn’t. But it’s pretty clear when he spends like twenty minutes talking about the outfit he’ll be wearing when he surprises you lot.”

“Yeah, he knows we miss him, though, because we argued about that on Christmas Day, but then I convinced him. And if he wasn’t sure before… I mean, I’m here, right?”

She chuckles. “It would have been a pretty cool surprise for him if it weren’t for this. You know, he talks about you all the time.”

“He does?”

“Yeah, I think that everything he does in the house. It’s something you taught him. Although I have to say that you taught him some really wrong stuff, like… apple seeds aren’t poisonous, you know.”

“Yes, they are!”

“Nope.”

“Yes, they are,” he repeats, more quietly this time.

Mandy texts her sister to let her know that there’s a guy sleeping on their sofa and promises him to wake him up at 5 the next morning, and they both go to sleep soon after.

Things haven’t gone exactly as planned, but Dennis will be in Philly tomorrow and Mac finally has a chance, which is all he was hoping for.

 

It’s still dark outside when Mandy wakes him up. They both tiptoe around the apartment not to disturb her sister and kid. Mandy brews the strongest coffee ever and tells him to get anything he wants from the pantry so Mac dips like twenty almond biscuits in his beverage. After breakfast they get ready, and before they leave she tosses him a can of deodorant and tells him to spray a generous amount because he's been wearing the same clothes all night and he’ll have them on for the next nine hours, and it’d be better if he weren’t completely disgusting when he finally sees Dennis.

Outside it’s freezing and Mac blows hot breath in his hands as she starts the engine and turns on the heating. The streets are packed with truck and early risers, and Mandy turns on the radio as she drives and changes frequency until she finds some country indie music. She says it’s good for her nerves so she doesn’t yell at every other driver. Then she tells Mac about the kid. She says she does to kindergarten and Dennis pick him up and takes him home every day at four, and she brings him to Dennis’ apartment every Friday at five for the weekend and he brings him back on Sunday after dinner, but the arrangement is supple because they’re both reasonable people with jobs and the occasional drawback; Brian doesn’t have allergies but he doesn’t like grown-ups veggies and olives and he absolutely loves cheese, which drives Dennis insane. Mac thinks that she probably doesn’t know what to talk about with him, because this is all very specific service information and it all sounds really unnecessary. But then she drops him off in front of the airport and says,

“This was just a heads up in case you’ll be here more often,” and suddenly it all makes sense. It’s cool that she hasn’t given up on the “two dads” idea because he hasn’t either.

Before boarding, he looks up at articles about movies to watch on plane. They’re all unreliable and they literally recommend him anything from  _ Shrek _ to “any movie with Meryl Streep,” so he gives up after a while. He looks around to see if old bearded man from yesterday is there, but of course it’s not possible because his daughter's wedding is today. He feels kind of bad for him because now he’s all on his own to stop the wedding, but in truth he only cared about his Dennis not marrying a random Margaret and also he didn’t think it was that bad to write an invitation without surnames. If he ever gets married, he won’t need surnames because there’ll be no doubt on who he is and also because he’s definitely not going to put his full name on his wedding invitation. 

When he takes off, his seat mate doesn’t try to strike any conversation with him and he’s glad for that because this is still an ungodly hour and he’s really goddamn tired, so he tells himself not to have any weird dreams and drifts off into drowsiness, saving himself the trouble of watching Meryl Streep movies to pass the time.

This trip didn’t feel real. It’s been less than twelve hours since he landed in North Dakota and he’s slept for seven of them, and a day ago he certainly didn’t think he’d fly over half of the country and back for Dennis and Charlie’s stupid musical.

When the captain announces the landing he jolts awake and the guy next to him makes an annoyed noise because he accidentally elbowed him, and he’s disorientated for a moment because he’s spent so much time on planes he doesn’t even know where he’s going, but he’s going to Philadelphia, he’s going back home and now it really feels like nothing in the last twenty-four hours has even happened because he’ll be back and it’ll be like nothing’s changed.

He left Mandy’s house at five thirty but he didn’t consider that Philadelphia is in a different timezone, and he gasps when he glances at the clock; it’s late as shit so he calls Dee to get a ride.

“Where the hell are you?” she asks as soon as she picks up.

“I’m at the airport, Dee, stop asking me where I am!”

“I’ve never asked you where you were! Are you taking a taxi?”

“No, Jesus Christ. I lost my wallet! With all my money!”

“You never told me, how am I supposed to know?”

“I’ve told plenty of people so I thought you already knew!”

“Well, no, asshole, I didn’t know because nobody ever tells me anything, as you know.” She scoffs. “Wait there, I’m coming. Charlie’s yelling at me.”

“Bring food,” he tells her in a rush before she ends the call.

He sits on the floor in front of a vending machine wondering why the hell he didn’t buy that Snickers bar earlier because he’s starving and Dee surely won’t bring food with her, because she’s never been useful once in her entire life.

The airport floor is probably one of the least sanitary places to sit on, but all the benches are occupied and he won’t stand there without moving for an hour like an idiot. People get past him and his backpack and his smelly clothes and curl their nose at him like they can see that there hasn’t been a moment in the last twenty-four hours where he didn’t look homeless.

Dee calls him back and tells him to move his ass because she’s waiting for him in the parking lot, and they spend five minutes with her trying to tell him exactly where she’s parked and him lost and wandering until finally he spots her, and seeing her is the best damn thing ever at the moment because it’s still winter and it’s still freezing. He’s a bit disappointed that she’s alone because he was hoping that someone might want to greet him as soon as possible, but he’ll see him anyway in a moment.

“Why are you wearing your costume?” he asks when he gets in the car. “You look stupid.”

“I brought yours, too,” she replies. “You’ve got to get changed in the car or you won’t make it in time and Artemis will have to fill in your role.”

She starts driving like she’s Lightning-fucking-McQueen through the streets of Philadelphia and he suddenly realizes that the musical is, like, about to start and he’s totally going to forget his lines because until the Dennis issue is properly addressed he absolutely cannot focus on Rainbowrat.

He wrestles on his seat to put on his ugly tablecloth costume, and does his makeup looking at the mirror on the passenger’s side. His eyes always start watering when he applies mascara because he never manages to do it without hitting the goddamn pupil and it’s so frustrating he doesn’t get how Dennis does it every morning without snapping the tube in a half.

When they stop at a traffic light, a guy in a big truck on the other lane sees them in their stupid costumes and takes his phone out to take a picture, so both Mac and Dee flip him off with both hands until the light turns green and she totally makes him eat dust with her shitty car.

“You can’t laugh at art!” Mac shouts at him when she starts the engine. They won’t be mocked by ignorant assholes on the street who think everything just slightly out of the ordinary is the most ridiculous thing in the world, even though their costumes suck and Charlie’s musicals hardly count as art. They’re still proud of what they’ve done all on their own.

They drive in silence for a while because Dee is focused on not crashing and Mac is trying not to freak out, but eventually he speaks.

“How’s Dennis?”

“Oh, he’s fine but he’s really pissed.”

“At me?”

She scoffs a laugh. “At everyone. He didn’t get the welcoming he wanted because we all knew he was coming, because Charlie told us to explain why he was tearing his hair off when he found out you left. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so desperate. It was hilarious.”

“Is he still angry?”

She shrugs. “I think he forgot after like five minutes.”

When they arrive at the theatre they see that people have already started gathering outside, and they try to look as inconspicuous as possible as they get in but it’s pretty much impossible to be invisible when you’re dressed like that in mid-January and everyone can recognize you anyway because you serve them beer every weekend, so they end up shaking hands and getting patted on the back by their regulars, and Dee texts Charlie to let him know that they’re being retained outside but they’re here and they’re both ready. It’s actually nice to see all these excited faces. These people must all be insane if they’re here, because either they know how weird Charlie is, or have no idea who he is but still bought tickets for a musical with the name of  _ another _ musical.

Finally they manage to free themselves and get inside, where Artemis is helping people find their seats in the half-lit audience and she tells them that they’d better get behind the stage fast, so they run past the audience and climb on the stage and sneak behind the closed curtains.

The stage is still in the dark and they have to be careful not to trip on the props, but luckily they’ve rehearsed enough times to know exactly where they are, and also to know that there’s a slight bump on the floor right there and it’s easy to slip on it and tumble down.

They hear Charlie give instructions to old Gladys about one of the songs, and Frank say something about a burger that moved, Dennis, it was cooked so bad that he saw it move. Dee goes on, but Mac halts to recollect himself. He hears her say,

“Guess who’s back, bitches?”

“That was my line!” Dennis says.

Mac fixes his clothes and runs a hand through his hair, and then he steps into the light of the backstage yelling,

“Mac is in the house!”

And for a moment all his friends cheer and they all look so dumb and cheerful and Dennis is radiant even in that ridiculous striped tablecloth he’s wearing and he looks like he’s a bit short of breath and Mac feels like that too.

“Never do that again,” Charlie says.

“That’s probably better,” he agrees, and he’s bouncing up and down because he’s suddenly bursting out of his skin, there’s so much energy in him and he’s looking at Charlie and Frank and Dee and Dennis anticipating everything that can happen and he loves his best friend so much it feels so good to see him again, and they’re about to go out there and perform the best musical ever and all of their clients are going to meet Dennis and they’re going to love him and it’s going to be so great.

Dennis steps forward and moves at his side and Mac needs to ask,

“Are you still mad at me?”

Dennis does a thing with his head that’s right between a shake and a nod and says, “Well, you did ruin my surprise, but I guess that the point of it was to be here now, so, no. Maybe a little bit. “

Mac sighs in relief and Dennis gives him one of his secret smiles and then he chuckles and clasps his shoulder, and Mac knows it’s all going to be fine now..

“Three minutes!” Charlie says. “Okay, so, we’re all here now, right?”

“For once,” Frank says.

They’re all here and it’s been so long since last time that they can’t even pretend it feels like a minute, but they’re here, and that’s what matters.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom before we begin so keep it short,” Dee says.

“Yeah, alright, just a quick thing, okay, don’t screw this up, no new songs, no new nothing, stick to the script or I swear to god I’m going mad for real. We can do this, guys, right? Now go on stage and show them what you’ve got.” He looks so professional and determined it’s like he was born to do this.

“Bathroom.”

Mac and Dennis already take their place on stage. Dennis slips on the bump on the floor and Mac asks him if he’s okay and he’s expecting Dennis to be annoyed but he just assents. Then Dee joins them and they see the lights flicker in the audience to announce that the show’s about to start, and Mac wishes good luck to his friends and Dee says,

“We’re going to need it.”

“No, we’re not,” Dennis replies. “At least, I won’t need it.”

“Motion to send Dennis back to North Dakota.”

“Denied,” Mac says, and Dennis laughs.

The curtains roll open and the spotlights flood the stage.

Mac, Dennis and Dee begin walking around with their hands on their swords, ready to go to battle, meowing sometimes but not too often because the audience isn’t supposed to laugh at them.

The music plays.

“Just another day, in the field of war, and sometimes I feel like it will never end!” Dee sings.

Mac and Dennis look out for the enemies and they moan and sigh and Dennis is good at pretending he’s tired of this shit, but it’s clear he’s having fun being so dramatic because he’s not as good at acting as he thinks and Mac can see his smirk, and maybe the audience won’t notice but Mac knows his face too well.

“We’re the best!”

“We are only five cats but we’re invincible!” Dennis says, and this is how it should feel like when you hear those lines, like they’re the truth.

And then Mac sings, and he tells Dennis, “You know I won’t leave you,” and, “Together’s where we belong,” and this is the truth and he knows that getting Dennis to play Spanky was the best goddamn decision ever, and Dennis surely knows it because he looks at him like he’s hanging from his lips.

Charlie and Frank come on stage and they kill Dennis and take him away, and Mac and Dee say their lines while the others run in the backstage to get changed, and Mac can hear Charlie’s conceited voice telling his friends to  _ hurry up, hurry up, move _ , and then he and Dee sing  _ Life Goes On  _ while the others run  _ back _ to the other side.

“I can see them,” Mac says. “I’m scared, Stinky. I don’t want to lose.”

“Me neither! I don’t want to end up like Spanky!”

They gasp when Frank and Charlie arrive. They start fighting, and Dennis’ voice rises from offstage so rich and intense it vibrates in Mac’s chest and fills him with hope.

“ _ My friends both fight, and fight they do. They think I’m dead, but that’s not true. I am a cat of battle-claws, takes more than death to close these jaws.” _

It didn’t feel true when Artemis sang this, but now Dennis is back, and Spanky wonders why his friends won’t surrender when their fight isn’t worth the struggle, when there’s so much better in the world, “ _ I have to tell ‘em to drop their sword.  _ I’m alive, bitches!” he exclaims, jumping on stage. Mac can’t help looking at him like he’s a miracle.

“Spanky!” he shouts, and he frees himself from Frank’s grip and runs toward him and almost collides with him in the rush but Dennis steadies him taking him by the shoulders.

“ _ Join me, friend _ ,” he sings, “ _ love me true, there’s a life here for us two. I have found a better way, come with me, I’ll show you _ .” Dennis takes Mac’s hand and leads him to the other end of the stage, where Mac pretends to look around but he’s mostly looking at Dennis with a grin on his face.

“I fight alone!” Dee cries, and Charlie chains her and sings.

Dennis leaves Mac’s hand but remains close to him, so close that their arms touch.

“Your makeup is smudged,” he whispers.

“I know, dude, you have to teach me how to put on mascara.”

“ _ You will never be alone, what I fighter you have been, come with us and find your home _ !” Charlie finishes.

“I can see my friends!” Dee says, pointing at Mac and Dennis. “They’re here, they are well!”

There’s a silence and then Dennis nudges Mac’s foot and hisses, “Line!”

Mac snaps awake. “This place,” he recites. “It’s better than anything we ever saw!”

Dennis takes his wrist and leads him to the centre of the stage, and he can’t meet his eyes as he says, “It’s new, and that feels scary, but I think we can build a life together here.”

 

_ New Life _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by the Gang _

 

_ Just because it’s new _

_ doesn’t mean it’s worse. _

_ It can be your making _

_ or it can be your fall. _

_ But if at your side  _

_ you still have your friends _

_ you will surely find  _

_ it worth it to take the chance. _

 

_ It’s not what you were used to, _

_ ‘cause sometimes life is strange, _

_ sometimes is just hits you _

_ with unexpected change. _

 

_ But just because it’s new _

_ doesn’t mean it’s worse. _

_ It can be your making _

_ or it can be your fall. _

_ But if at your side  _

_ you still have your friends _

_ you will surely find _

_ it worth it to take the chance. _

 

“Stage freeze!”

“I told you already! Don’t say stage freeze, just do it!”

“But it’s better if I say it because then they can see that we’re doing it!”

Frank tells them both to shut up and kicks him in the ankle and says, “You shut up!” but then he doesn’t say anything else and they all bathe in the audience’s applause for what feel like twenty full minutes.

Charlie is the first one to break free, and he takes a step forward and bows. The rest of the Gang claps and cheers along the audience. Then Charlie comes back and takes Dee’s hand at his right and Mac’s at his left, and Mac stretches his fingers and feels Dennis’ hand close over his. They bow three times and they can’t see anything because the spotlights are blinding them, but it doesn’t matter: what matters it just them, and their adrenalin wearing down now that it’s over, and the sound of praise coming from somewhere before them.

Mac looks at Dennis’ proud face and squeezes his hand because he needs to release the residual frenzy in his body, but after a moment Dennis squeezes back and so they’re holding each other’s hand as tight as possible.

“Move, dude, we’re going,” Charlie says, pushing him away from the stage, so Mac smiles one last time at the audience and steps away from the lights.

Once they’re in the backstage, Charlie collapses on the floor with a satisfied frown and Frank follows him suit but just because he’s exhausted.

“What now?” Dennis asks.

“Now we go back to Paddy’s,” Frank says. “What else?”

“Yeah, we can open the bar now,” Dee says, because now that the adventure is over they have nothing else to do.

Dennis fishes his phone from his jeans pockets, in a lump on a chair, and looks at the time. “I’m late for my plane,” he says.

“What?”

“You’re going already?”

“Why not? I came here for the musical, we did the musical, I’m done.”

He looks at them like he’s expecting them to say something, but they don’t because they know it won’t work. Dennis locks eyes with Mac and Mac returns his stare and his heart sinks.

Dennis quickly puts on his clothes, glances at his friends once more, and moves to another room to call a taxi. Charlie watches him with curiosity, Frank frowns like he has no idea what’s happening all of a sudden, and Dee’s mouth is thin with concern. Mac just doesn’t understand because Dennis came back and he thought it meant something.

“Well, I’m going,” Dennis says five minutes later. 

“Bye,” they say. It’s not like they’re not disappointed after the musical and all but they won’t be the ones to stop him because far be it from them to keep the flower of him from flourishing.

“See you, or, talk to you, or whatever. I’m out.”

And just like that, he’s out.

For a couple of minutes, they all look at the door where he left. He didn’t make a big scene out of it, this time, didn’t shout at them, didn’t turn off the lights. He just disappeared, like a mirage in the desert.

“Well. He’s an idiot,” Frank states.

“Yep,” Dee agrees.

“Weird guy,” Charlie says. “You know, he even made me change part of the musical and now I’m like, why, man?”

“He made you change the musical?”

“Yeah, remember when I told you I’d written it back in, like, October, but I said that I still hadn’t finished it? I had finished it but then the day before I told you I called him and he asked me to make changes and it wasn’t anything major so I was like, okay, fine, I’ll have to work more but he sounded like he cared a lot—”

“But what did he make you change?” Mac asks.

“Oh, at first Stinky and Rainbowrat—”

“Just say our names.”

“At first Dee and Mac were both supposed to get captured by me and Frank while Dennis, like, narrated the whole thing and then revealed he was alive, but when I told him my idea he was like, no, make Mac join me, and then he got all excited and started talking about living arrangements and I kind of lost him at that point.”

Mac stares at Charlie feeling like if he shifts his gaze everything will start spinning.

“So, he wanted me to go with him,” he repeats, just to make it absolutely crystal clear.

“I guess?” Charlie says, raising his palms.

“But then why did he leave?” Mac asks, almost hysterical but right now he really doesn’t care if his voice is three octaves higher than normal.

“How am I supposed to know, dude? I’m not in his head! Maybe he didn’t want to do anything unless he was sure you wanted to do it first, I don’t know!”

“Dee,” Mac says, still looking at Charlie. “You’ve got to drive me to the airport.”

“To do what?”

“To stop him, Dee! I know I said this yesterday, but I’m really going to get Dennis back.”

“Okay,” Frank says. “But I want in on the action this time.”

“No! Absolutely not! You’ll ruin everything!”

“We’ll wait in the car,” Charlie compromises. “But we’re all coming.”

So they end up cramped in Dee’s car and argue about the windows for five minutes and finally she starts driving to take Mac to the airport for the second time in two days, and Mac is terrified, but he can’t be because he’s a tough guy and this time he’ll get it right. If Dennis wants to hear the truth, chapter and verse, Mac won’t be the one denying him that. He’ll put it out there, plain and simple, he’ll wear his heart on his sleeve like he’s never done before, not when he tried to kiss him multiple times and not when he gave him the RPG and not when he told him about the bedroom, and he will come out of that airport with nothing left unsaid, and if Dennis leaves then it will only be his fault because Mac will leave no room for misunderstandings.

“I’m not exactly sure what you’re doing here,” he tells the others.

“Are you kidding me? We’re a Gang, dude, we move in pack.”

It doesn’t really make sense because they’re cats, not dogs, but he’ll live with this explanation.

Dee drops him off right outside the doors and Mac runs inside as fast as he can, and he doesn’t give a shit if everybody stares at him when he shouts Dennis’ name. They can follow him and witness the entire thing if they want, for all he cares.

“Dennis!”

There’s a fuck ton of people but finally he spots him in line for the check-in, and he’s almost through the doors and if he goes in Mac won’t be able to reach him anymore.

“Dennis!  _ Dennis _ !”

Thankfully Dennis turns around, and his mouth hangs open when he sees Mac. He stops walking and grips the metal barrier, and Mac runs to him and stands right in front of him.

“Dennis,” he says, with all the seriousness in the world. “I love you.”

“Seriously? In an airport?”

“Move!” someone shouts from behind, and neither of them pays attention.

“You’re in an airport, dude! Of course I’m doing it in an airport.”

“Yes but—”

“Come home with me,” Mac pleads.

“You’re blocking the line!”

Dennis leans over the barrier and looks back, furious. “Shut up, you bitch!”

“Either you go with him or you move!”

“Fine, I’ll go! Assholes.” Dennis climbs over the bar and grasps Mac’s wrist and takes him away, not even looking at him. They head to the exit.

“So… you’re not going away?”

Dennis sighs, exasperated. “No, I’m not going, you idiot! I can’t believe you were going to let me leave again.”

Dennis is still gripping Mac’s wrist and Mac isn’t complaining.

“You looked like you wanted to get away from us as soon as possible, dude!”

“Yeah, well, you never told me to stay.”

Mac stops, and Dennis leaves his wrist and faces him.

“Stay with us,” Mac asks. Pleads, actually, and he doesn’t even care if it’s evident.

“Of course I’m staying, it’s pointless to tell me now. I’m already staying.”

The rest of the Gang is still waiting outside in the same exact spot, blocking a line of cars for change. People are honking at them and Dee is throwing insults back.

“We’re back!” Mac announces, climbing into the backseat.

“You did it!” Charlie says, both happy and incredulous.

“I did it!”

“Hey, guys.”

“Dennis,” they greet him.

“Welcome back.”

 

Dee drives them back to the bar. Dennis smiles when he sees Paddy’s and he tries to keep it cool but he’s eager to get inside. When he steps in he drinks in the light signs and stickers and machinery like it’s the best view in the world, and he leaves out a breathy giggle when he sees the little pride flag on the counter and the other stuff they’ve accumulated while he was away - the knickknacks and pictures and the green and silver banner and the ugly badges that Charlie somehow taped to a wall.

“Hey, bartender!” Frank calls. “Serve us a beer.”

“Alright, alright,” Dennis says. “Who wants one?”

He gets behind the counter like the old times and Dee joins him while the others sit on stools.

“To the musical!” Charlie cheers raising his bottles.

“To the musical, baby!”

“You know, Charlie,” Dee says, “you did a really good job.”

“Oh, guys, you were good too. Now you see what it meant, right?”

“No, not really,” Mac admits cheerfully.

Charlie points at the bar and the new stuff and the pride flag and at each of them and waves a hand in front of Dennis, and then he wiggles his hands weirdly like he’s actually expecting them to get what he means with this, when he points at all the things that have changed and all the new memories they have made, and at the friend who’s here now and who’ll never stop being their friend even when he goes back to North Dakota because this is the one thing that’ll never change - because maybe the Gang is different but their friendship is intact.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Charlie; I’ve got no idea.”

“Yep. No clue.”

“Oh my god, guys, you’re all idiots!”

“You know what, let’s just drink to us being amazing actors and be done with it.”

 

_ New Life _

_ by Charlie Kelly _

_ performed by the Gang _

 

_ Just because it’s new _

_ doesn’t mean it’s worse. _

_ It can be your making _

_ or it can be your fall. _

_ But if at your side  _

_ you still have your friends _

_ you will surely find  _

_ it worth it to take the chance. _

 

_ It’s not what you were used to, _

_ ‘cause sometimes life is strange, _

_ sometimes is just hits you _

_ with unexpected change. _

 

_ But just because it’s new _

_ doesn’t mean it’s worse. _

_ It can be your making _

_ or it can be your fall. _

_ But if at your side  _

_ you still have your friends _

_ you will surely find _

_ it worth it to take the chance. _

 

Later that night, Mac and Dennis walk back to their apartment.

Mac tells Dennis a bunch of funny stories and Dennis laugh, and when he accidentally bumps into Mac’s shoulder he doesn’t flinch away.

“…and then he said,  _ oh my god that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever seen _ !”

“He was as high as a kite!”

“He totally was!”

They tumble into their apartment, giggling and a little out of breath, and Dennis gives a tiny push to Mac’s shoulder and leaves his hand on it, and he leans on it while he laughs.

Dennis still hasn’t said anything about the airport, but Mac tells himself that he’s here and this is what should count, he’s back in their home like Mac always wanted.

But he doesn’t know what Dennis thinks, he doesn’t know if his feelings are returned, if something can happen. And he doesn’t feel like asking now because they’re here and they’re so happy, so he keeps cracking jokes and Dennis laughs even when he says they’re not funny.

They end up sprawled on the couch and they talk until it’s really late and their voices fade away, low and hoarse, and Dennis’ head lolls against Mac’s shoulder and Mac can’t ignore the elephant in the room anymore. Dennis knows everything now, but he doesn’t, and first of all it’s unfair and secondly he doesn’t know how to behave with him because his first instinct now would be to shift and let Dennis cocoon on him, but instead he stands up, ignoring Dennis’ noise of complaint, and tells him that they should probably go to bed so Dennis has to decide where to sleep.

“Why, in my bedroom.”

“Yeah,” Mac says, unsure. “But my use my old room for storage now, so, like, there’s still only one bed, and the couch, so I can sleep on the couch but I already slept on Mandy’s last night and my neck is still sore, so…”

“What the hell are you saying?”

Dennis sounds annoyed. Mac raises his head and looks at him.

“What?” he asks.

“I stayed here after you told me you loved me! We’re clearly going to sleep on the same bed!”

Relief floods him, but of course Dennis just assumed Mac would know that even though he didn’t even reply to that.

“Yeah but you didn’t do anything after I told you!”

“I was waiting for the right occasion!” Dennis replies, like everyone waits like six hours to do something after hearing a love confession, like in romance movies people wait to bring it up later like it’s no big deal.

“Any time is the right occasion, dude!”

“Why didn’t you do anything, then?” Dennis asks, unruly, like he’s checkmating Mac with this comeback.

“I already told you I love you! It’s clearly your turn, now.”

“Well, I love you too. It’s your turn now.”

It is Mac’s turn, but Dennis just told him he loves him. The words “I love you” just left Dennis Reynolds’ mouth and now they’re just standing in front of each other with their eyes wide open. Dennis looks like he’s just beginning to realize that he unveiled all his cards.

“You love me?” Mac asks, just to make sure he heard it right.

Dennis makes a noise of disbelief.

“Of— I—”

He can’t find the words so he leaps and presses his mouth against Mac’s, hard and fast.

Mac’s hands rise to frame his face, and when Dennis parts from him he chases his lips and kisses him again. Dennis breathes out a gasp of surprise and he kisses it away, and he kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, and Dennis keeps kissing him back.

When they tear themselves away they’re breathing heavily and Mac is stunned and Dennis is looking at him like his brain turned to mush.

“That was  _ great _ ,” Mac says.

“Yeah.”

“Want to do it again?”

For a moment, Mac wonders if Dennis will turn around and leave for good. 

But Dennis isn’t going anywhere. He touches Mac’s arms and shoulders like he’s in shock and he’s forgotten what to do and just wants to feel him there, and then he takes Mac’s face between his hands, sweeps his thumbs on Mac’s cheekbones, kisses him again. Mac embraces him with all the enthusiasm he has.

“Your kisses are wet,” Dennis murmurs, like he still has a cool façade to maintain.

“I’ll show you wet,” Mac replies. He gently chews at Dennis’ bottom lip and opens his mouth, and Dennis forgets how to make articulate sounds.

 

They’re lying on their bed when Mac pops the big question. Dennis’ head is on Mac’s shoulder and his hand rests lightly on Mac’s collarbone.

“Will you stay here a couple of days?”

“Yeah, I can arrange that.”

“And after that… can I come with you?”

“I guess there’s enough space for you in my apartment, so… yeah.”

“For how long can I stay?”

Dennis moves his head to look at him and they’re so close that their noses are nuzzling.

“You’re a grown man, Mac, I won’t be the one telling you how long you can stay.”

Mac plants a kiss on Dennis’ nose.

“Wait,” he says, sliding away from underneath him and propping himself up on an elbow, so that now they’re facing each other. “Is that why you moved into a bigger apartment? So that I could stay with you?”

“Well. I may have been anticipating something like this when Charlie told me about the musical… but it wasn’t for you. I needed storage.”

“Dude, you bought a new apartment for me and you were going to fly back to North Dakota,” Mac notes.

“Yeah. Well. No. I wasn’t going to North Dakota.”

“Where were you going?” Mac asks, surprised.

Dennis makes a long, dragged out noise. “Nowhere. I was… I knew you’d stop me.”

“You were in line for the check-in even though you didn’t have the ticket because you were hoping I’d stop you?”

“No.”

Mac raises his eyebrows because Dennis really is a cretin.

“Yeah, okay, okay,” Dennis admits. “I was hoping you’d stop me. Happy, now?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m… I guess I’m happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: and then Mac moved to North Dakota and a year later he and Dennis opened Paddy’s Pub #2
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> hello!! thanks for reading this, I hope you had fun. I certainly had fun having something to do with my summer and also this fic got one of my friends into macdennis so that's a win

**Author's Note:**

> thanks "is this sufjan stevens song gay or just about god?" on spotify for being there while i was writing this


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